Eternal Return
by notoriousjae
Summary: "The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?" Max and Chloe live their lives the only way possible: through Time. (Pricefield all up in dis bidness)
1. Chapter 1

" _The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?"_

-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being._

 **M. C.**

Max never remembers the first time she uses her powers and she forgets it twice.

She watches the world around her stomp into snow like they're making an impact-a difference-while she slouches on the side of the road, smiling and taking pictures with young blue eyes, nose so red she feels like Rudolph watching all those reindeer games (whatever those are). All the other kids on the street are laughing and dancing in the piles while she waits-and waits-and her eyes watch the snow grow heavier and heavier, streets frozen. She's waiting for her parents to finish packing all of their boxes and she thinks it sort of sucks because she never even really had a chance to meet anyone in grade school and maybe they told her to stay put but she wants to watch-wants to get closer-wants to see how cold the snow is with her own fingers and taste it on her tongue like the girl down the street who's kind of already busy making a snow angel.

And Max thinks that looks like a _lot_ of fun.

An owlish blink when she catches something out of the corner of her eyes. A...butterfly? In the snow? She doesn't pay a lot of attention to her babysitter, but she's pretty sure it's way too cold for butterflies to be out here. It's blue-vibrant-and when she reaches her fingers out towards it, warmth glides down her skin. She's too young to understand-she'll always be too young to understand-but she follows it, anyways; watches it bounce up and down in the middle of the cool air like it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. And it is. To be so bright when everything else is so...dull.

It's-

"Woah." She slides a little on the ground, stumbling but catching herself on a nearby pole, laughing a little when she does, and the noise draws the girl down the street's attention. It must. Because what else would, with all those other kids playing over there? The butterfly floats away, but Max is suddenly distracted as she watches the girl shake her head, snapping up from the ground like her dog does, sometimes, and their eyes catch. Max doesn't know anybody here even though she's lived in Arcadia Bay her whole life, but she's seen the girl, sometimes. The girl with the bright blue eyes who makes wide arm gestures and smiles so wide that Max wishes she had her dad's digital camera to take a picture of it (is that weird? Maybe it's kinda weird) and even though she doesn't know her name, she's always wanted to. But she's older than her and probably wouldn't want to know her, anyways and...and Max forgets all about the butterfly.

"Maxine?"

Her mom calls from the house and blue eyes roll to the snowy heavens and back, breaking the girl's gaze to turn back home, too busy looking at blonde hair with a mop of white on top of it to hear a car coming. Somewhere, it's too cold, and a kid's balloon pops. Max blinks and looks back towards the older girl who's... no longer in the snow and brows knit.

"Max?" Her mom sounds a little louder. A snowball hits their garage and Max isn't really sure what's going on but the blonde girl's running towards her and she blinks, turning her head just enough to see a car coming, skidding and quaking and uncontrollable from the ice-

Towards her. Towards her because she's in the middle of the street and...

 _Oh, crap._

Hands wrap around her shoulders-the girl's? It barely registers in her mind-and young eyes wrench shut as a hand snaps up to shield the blow, kind of glad someone's here because she heard her mom talk about how their last dog died getting hit by a car, sometimes (when she didn't think Max was listening) and she thinks it's gotta suck to die alone. Max never wants to die alone.

But she doesn't want the girl to die because of her, either.

" _ **MAX-"**_

The girl can't really do anything now. They're both sort of stuffed and Max is scared as she feels those arms wrap protectively around her shoulders and her mother's voice grow frantic-desperate-the cold air cracking with it.

Her head is pounding. It all swirls. It all tastes like...like she put too much salt on her food and couldn't shake it off and when her eyes open, everything's...messed up. Blurry.

She's dead. She's dead. Oh, man, she's dead.

" _-ine?"_

Her mom, confused from the door, and...and a balloon. A balloon pops.

What? No car. No totally crazy crash like she's seen on those shows her dad watches on TNT sometimes. No...nothing.

Max blinks, looking around, her hand slowly dropping to see a car coming. She barely steps back when a snowball hits their garage and the blonde girl is running towards her, sort of...awesome and thoughtless and-and she's trying to save her, isn't she? That's so awesome. Before Max knows what she's doing, she grabs the girl's shoulders and tugs backwards when the blonde collides with her, knocking her out of harm's way into a large pile of snow as the car skids past them, both of their bodies creating enough momentum to slide right past it.

Max still doesn't know what it's like to make a snow angel, but she suddenly knows what it's like to be buried in it, a warm body on top of her. Eventually, they both groan and lift their heads up.

"That was _so_ crazy!" The girl's voice booms, blonde hair sticking to her forehead as she wildly looks around, like she didn't just save her life. "Hey." She greets and Max splutters a little.

"Hey?" She shouldn't sound so confused, but she is. Maybe she hit her head. Maybe that's why she thinks everything is-

"Your nose is bleeding."

"Huh?" A young hand scrubs at a point, smearing red and brown, looking down at her hands with wide eyes. Snow and blood and...and she's alive. She's not like the road runner, smooshed on the ground. "Woah." Scuffed hands hastily tug off a fluffy jacket and suddenly the blonde girl is pressing poofy fabric up to a red nose, "Thanks." It's muffled through the fabric and the large grin she gets in response from the blonde makes Max not feel so bad about her headache. "You saved my life."

"Yeah." The girl agrees and it seems to register, "Woah, yeah, I totally did! I like...I like just saved your life and stuff." Max nods, smiling when her hero dramatically flops back onto the ground next to her, "Close, right?" The girl agrees, making a whistling noise with her hand heading towards Max like that's even close to the sound a car makes. "I'm glad it didn't hit me. My mom never would've let me out of the house again. But it was totally worth it because you were, like...you were almost _roadkill_."

"That'd suck." Max boldly states.

The girl looks at her like she found twenty bucks and Max's chest clenches.

"Totally!"

There's a long moment of silence, Max hunched over on the stoop with a headache, a bloody nose, and this girl's jacket pressed up against her face, forgetting all about the popping balloon and the car and the snowball and her _mom_ , looking down at the prone, almost lazy form by her feet. A hand snaps up between them, the bare-armed girl offering a greeting.

"I'm Chloe." Her smile is soft but wide and carefree and Max immediately grabs her hand.

"I'm Max."

"Want to come over and, like, watch movies, and stuff?" It's the most casual offer she'll ever get after someone saves her life and Max nods and beams, handing the girl back her bloody jacket.

"Oh, God, Max." Both of her parents are suddenly outside, smothering her and Max swallows down the lingering fear in her chest. Her parents are so shaken up they wind up never moving-she never finds out why until she's twenty-seven with red-rimmed eyes and hollow knees-and invite Chloe in, instead, and Max learns what it's like to have a friend.

They laugh about stupid stuff and Chloe is sort of funny and when she blows a raspberry on her cheek the blonde doesn't even care that Max smacks her in the face with a pillow.

It's kind of great.

It's that night that Chloe tackles her into a fort of pillows, both of them laughing so hard that Max thinks she might cry and it isn't until Chloe falls asleep with a pillow over her head and both of their hands tangled that she realizes they never stopped holding hands. Her dad takes a picture and the young girl curls up next to her, glad for school to start, tomorrow, and falls asleep.

Max doesn't let go of the hand and Chloe never tells her to.

 **C.P.**

The first memory Chloe Price has of meeting Maxine Caulfield is of running. She doesn't remember the day very well, all of it pieces and fragments and torn remnants of a picture she was never able to put back together. Sometimes when she thinks about it, she remembers seeing a mess of brown hair above a railing. She remembers a laugh, sometimes, warming her chest and catching her attention. Sometimes she remembers the sound of a balloon popping, because who had balloons during a snowstorm, anyways? Sometimes she remembers the screeching of tires, or the way Max's jacket compressed when she laid on top of it and made a Max-Angel in the middle of a pile of snow.

Sometimes, if she thinks hard enough, she can remember the way blue eyes looked so far away across a sea of white, angels falling from the sky in a blanket of ice and _new_ , eyes frozen shut from tears, something pressed in her palm. She remembers the way Max looked so sad, hand barely raising above the white wood of her emptying home, but it's a faint memory. A bare one.

Chloe remembers many things about the first day she met Maxing Caulfield, and she remembers none of them, but she always-always-

She always, no matter when or where, remembers running.

 **M. C.**

" _You have to let me go, Max, you have to let me-"_

" _I'm never letting you go. I'm never letting you-"_

They say when a tornado comes it's like a train, and she reminds herself that she stopped a train from killing Chloe, too.

She has to do something. She has to do everything. There's things she hasn't tried-there's places she hasn't gone-there's places to go and people to do and one of them is Chloe, who she won't give up (she won't) and the steadying breath she tries to take isn't enough to calm her quivering hands or still the beating drum of a migraine against her ears.

She's on the floor of the bathroom, waiting- _waiting_ -and her tears are staining her journal. The hairs on the back of her neck are still standing from the rushing wind and her mouth is still warm from Chloe's lips but her hair is no longer soaking wet when Nathan Prescott pushes open the door. Maybe she's a C student, but she knows enough about the 21st century to know that the world doesn't really need (totally not virgin) sacrifices, anymore. There has to be another way.

There is another way. She just needs time.

She just needs _time_.

Sorry, Chloe. No non-virgin sacrifices today.

Max pulls the fire alarm.

 **C. P**

It's ruined. It's gone. It's gone-it's gone-it's gone-

Chloe remembers the way she burnt her fingers on the edge of searing black when she was four-remembers the way William used to tuck her knees underneath her as he lifted her up onto the counter-she remembers stealing pastries and donuts until she couldn't hide the glaze off her nose. She remembers the way Joyce would scream at her and the way she would fight and _hate_ and there's so many years of love and loathing locked up in her chest that Chloe's knees dig into gravel and dirt and blood.

The air is still-so settled that it burns her lungs, or are those just the tears?-and all she can feel are Max's hands gently cupping her shoulders.

She can't have all of that an hour ago and then have none of it an hour later, but Chloe knows better because she had all of her Dad, once, and none of him an hour later and all of Max, once, and none of her an hour later, and all of Rachel, once, and none of her _ever again_.

And now she feels like she's Max, for once, stuck between time like a wrathful, vengeful God reaping what she's sown, because she had all of Joyce, once, and wished this tornado on the world, and all of her life is gone. All of her life but Max is gone, and how long will that last, too?

"Mom." She begs, hands digging into the dirt like she'll find Joyce here like she found Rachel. "Mom-" Max is behind her, holding her back from digging through the wreckage, because this isn't like Rachel. This isn't like Rachel and Max can't look at her and the sinking, horrified feeling in her gut only grows.

"How many times?" Chloe shoves away from her, stumbling back, holding up an accusing finger like it's Max's fault when they both have to know it's hers and she ignores the way Max looks so small. "How many times have you done this?" It's an accusation, "Why won't you just let me die? Why won't you just let me-"

Chloe falls back down to the ground because what kind of a world does this? Who does this?

Chloe does. _Chloe does this_.

She burrows into Max as she cries and tries to not look so relieved and scared and loving when Max's hand knowingly raises up, her best friend's eyes sunken and tired, and the orphan knows what's about to happen.

"I'm sorry." Chloe weakly apologizes, fingers holding onto Max like she never really wanted to let go, and she doesn't remember anything, after that.

 **M. C.**

She's back in the bathroom and she can feel her like a phantom ghost-like a phantom _limb_ -alive but _dead_ weight sagging in her arms as Max saw what she'd wrought. She can't just let the tornado take Joyce. David. Warren. Brooke. Alyssa's limbs scattered like tinsel on a Christmas tree and the fisherman's eyes open so wide, leaning against a torn wall, that Max doesn't know if he ever had eyelids.

She can't.

The moment she's in the bathroom she throws up and when Nathan pushes into it he smells the stench and wrinkles his nose but maybe the smell fits whatever's happening in his head and Max can barely feel the world around her. She can barely listen as Chloe barges into the room. She stumbles and catches herself on the nearby pale-shit-her head light and breath barely a puff as she rewinds. Waits.

Chloe comes in and Max throws the alarm.

 **C. P**

"Max?" Chloe asks, moving forward to catch her best friend as she stumbles, and just like that she's back. She recognizes the way Max's lips part-the way her eyes glaze over and then focus, a hint of red staining underneath her nose-and a dirtied hand raises up to gently swipe away the red like it won't stain. "Max, you have to go back to-"

"No."

Chloe's heart is in her throat.

"Max, how many times have you-"

Max stumbles backwards, pushing her away, and without a single word, runs back towards the town.

"S-shit. Max? Max!" Chloe chases after her and neither one of them will ever remember what happens next.

But they never talk about it, either, so maybe it doesn't matter.

 **M. C.**

She rewinds. No pictures because they're burned. Chloe is impaled by a falling sign.

She rewinds. A stack of pictures never burned and she doesn't know why. Chloe is electrocuted trying to cut through to the diner.

She rewinds. One picture of them in her pocket, a necklace hanging around her neck and she kisses Chloe so hard she can barely breathe before the diner is crushed behind them, Chloe clutching desperately to her shoulders.

She rewinds. Resets. Rewinds. Resets.

Max doesn't remember anything, anymore, but her feet have worn paths into the dirt of the world like a shovel digging a grave and eventually she knows it all without feeling it. She pulls Chloe down when a sign swoops past-guides them around the wreckage-drops a plank for Alyssa while Chloe pulls a truck off of a face neither of them can know through blood and mud. They make it to the diner and Chloe kicks over sand while Max pulls them all out.

They're alive. They're all alive and Chloe's arm wraps around her neck, pulling her down as Max feels like her head is the one ready for the Mosh Pit, Shaka fucking brah.

"Max?" Chloe asks but Max can't breathe. She looks up and sees her, but can't remember- "Max?" Chloe presses, fingers pushing through wet hair and holding her and Max loses herself in blue eyes. Endless. "Max." Louder. Softer. Colder. Warmer. Max's body pitches forward and from this moment-from _this_ moment-Max learns about something Chloe won't explain to her for a decade.

She learns entropy is a bitch and she doesn't remember anything, after that. All she does is feel Chloe move forward without her, while part of her is stuck in the past, reliving it-reliving all of it-waiting to come back home, again.

 **C. P.**

It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than Chloe would've thought would've happened, what with the whole _tornado of doom out to get her_ thing.

Max can barely sleep and Chloe is right there with her and neither one of them knows what to do but shut up and hold each other, it seems like, so that's what Chloe does. Sometimes she hates her and she figures Max must hate her, too, but it's a lot easier to forget when Max tangles their fingers and dances breath like lullabies on the inside of her wrist. When Max leans into her and buries her nose in her neck and brushes the hair out of her eyes like she's something fucking precious-and Chloe wants to believe her-she lets her. And the more days that go by, the less Chloe hates Max and just hates herself, instead, which is what she's always hated and always will.

But the more days that pass, the less she hates that, too. Guess time travel heals all fucking wounds. Even the gaping chasm of a hometown they used to have.

They don't really know what to do after all of it, it's not like life will ever be normal, again, so they wind up living in the bed of Chloe's car for the majority because the shelter is too much and broken remnants of their childhood homes and schools and _diners_ isn't enough. Joyce asks them to help clean up Arcadia Bay only once before seeing the look on Max's face-like she was going to turn around and hurl and scream and maybe go catatonic all at once-and immediately suggests they go spend time with her parents in Seattle, instead. They don't. Not right away, anyways.

The mornings are spent staring at wreckage that's slowly pooled to the side like the town's been disaster snow-plowed and the nights are spent huddled together under the blanket in her trunk, Max way too small underneath all that fabric, nose buried in her neck and arms tight around her. Chloe holds her back and hates that she's so glad to be alive.

Eventually, she hates that less, too.

It's been a week and Max still hasn't called her parents-hasn't talked to anyone but Chloe, even the friends who did survive only getting nods and slim smiles and occasional hugs until Max gives them a look and Chloe shoves them all away like the loyal guard dog she maybe is-and it's a day before the official list is posted that it happens.

People come forth and Chloe eventually realizes that Max is waiting for someone in particular-someone that isn't her-but she must be too scared to go into the wreckage and too scared to leave it. For once, Chloe doesn't push her. It's not that Warren kid, stumbling with a bleeding fellow-nerd girl, or that Alyssa girl who hugged Max so tight she was kind of surprised that she didn't break her back. It's not the creepy kid drawing up some (okay, pretty awesome) pictures of everyone missing or the teacher. Not the janitor or the principal or even David who was stuck in a bomb shelter across town-

And maybe Chloe hugs step-douche, too, so hard she might break _his_ back, which is alright, because he kind of fucking deserves it, the miserable fucking super-soldier-

-and it's not even Victoria, who Max actually hugs _first_ like it's some kind of bizarro world.

It's some blonde chick and this old lady, stumbling, that finally causes Max to stumble off of the truck and catch herself around the older woman. Chloe hops off of her old baby, the shocks absorbing a little less than they used to, moving forward and stopping, hand reaching out across the distance because it feels so messed up and cold in this town full of wreckage without Max right by her.

"Taylor!" Max's hand shoots up to the girl's shoulder, fingers curling in the fabric, leaning the older woman against the nearby over-turned car.

"Max?" The woman asks, "Max, I've heard so much about you."

"I'm so glad you're both alright." Taylor, this blonde chick, is hardly the first person to tug Max into a hug-apparently super Max made as many friends as she used to when they were kids-and it's not the first person where Max looks over her shoulder. "Is Kate-"

And then Chloe gets it. And immediately moves behind her.

Taylor looks stunned, brows knitting painfully underneath her bangs, and for once Chloe isn't angry at someone she doesn't know-doesn't judge them-because they've all been through enough to understand that kind of devastated look.

"Kate?" Taylor's voice hitches and Chloe wants to punch the wall.

"Max," Surprisingly enough, the woman leaning up against the car's voice is the one to respond, hand gently reaching out to cup both of the girl's shoulders, obviously recognizing the tone of voice cracking her kid's throat in two. "She tried to get everyone out of the hospital. She went back upstairs to help evacuate the top floor and-"

"Max." Taylor's eyes are so full of tears that the only thing Chloe knows how to do is gently take her best friend's shoulders, swallowing down the lump in her own throat. "I'm so sorry, she-"

"She went back." Max breathes it and Chloe knows her. She knows every hitch of her voice and every dip of her breath and every clench of her fingers, even with a week together and five years gone. She knows Max Caulfield like the back of her hand, bloody and bruised and broken, and she doesn't cry, then, but that night in the truck when it hits her like a load of bricks, Chloe feels the air stiffen, tugs the brunette into her arms, and lets her best friend sob into her shoulder for the first time all week.

The next morning the list of official casualties is posted-not as many as Chloe thought there'd be, and what fucked up kind of gratitude is that?-and she watches from what feels like miles away as Max traces _Kate Marsh_ on a piece of torn paper like a prayer.

"Chloe," Max rasps an hour later, voice rough from disuse, turning to look at her like she'd looked on that cliff before she tore that photo. She looks determined and sad and angry and so old it scares her. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Without a word, Chloe kisses her temple and opens the door and they drive through the wreckage and still-uncleared bodies of their home town, reaching out to gently tangle their fingers. She finds it odd that as much as she wanted to skip out of here for so much of her life, leaving it is the second-hardest thing she's ever had to do.

Chloe never lets go of Max's hand, and Max never asks her to.

 **M...**

She can still feel the water staining her hair like she's dumped Kate's watercolors over a stack of polaroids as she stumbles forward, fingers clutching at wood and-not an endtable, this time. Not the hospital. Not the school. No desk or end-table or the dirty, rusting edge of metal on Chloe's truck. A dresser. A wardrobe. She tries to focus, head _searing_ and finally recognizes the off-brand mahogany hue of her...old bedroom dresser. Above it, precariously perching, almost knocked over from Max tumbling into it to catch herself, is an unassuming, smiling picture of Chloe and Max, young and carefree. Happy. Best friends. Max's hands shakily raise to cup it, to run fingers along the edges of Chloe's smile, because if she's...if she's _here_ then-

"Seattle." Max drops the picture because no matter how much she time travels, she never loses that sense of _urgency_ -that ironic, never-failing notion that she's nearly out of _time_ -as she stumbles towards her bedroom door. "Mom?" She calls into their apartment. Nothing. "Dad?" Nothing. They probably aren't expecting their daughter to lose her shit on the middle of a boring, regular day, and Max ignores the throbbing of her head-the stinging of her nose-because she'll forget, soon. She'll forget all of it, soon. She'll forget the tornado and the way Chloe's knees dug into the ground. She feels like she fixed it-she feels like she _fixed_ it-but she doesn't remember when she came back from or where she's going when she'll forget and-

God this is all so messed up. Her life is becoming a Troma film.

Her dresser's knocked over just enough from her stumbling into it to showcase a crumpled, torn piece of paper behind it that Max doesn't _remember_ , but she doesn't see it, all she sees is spots and rain and Chloe bleeding out in a bathroom, alone and _dying_ , as she grabs the nearest piece of paper.

Chloe. Maybe she came from the tornado. Maybe she came from the bathroom when Chloe asked her to give her up. Maybe this is the only way she can save her-by _saving_ her. By fixing it. She didn't talk to Chloe for so many years, but maybe-

"Don't be too late. I can't be too late. I can't be-fuck!" She's probably too young to be swearing so boldly and her dog trots up to her, giving her the most curious, almost _knowing_ look.

Max wonders if, in any of these timelines, she managed to kill him, too.

"It's okay, Sparky." She consoles, anyways, and the dog nuzzles into her thigh like he knows she's upset, Max trying to focus down on the paper as she writes. She just focuses on _writing_. "It'll all be okay."

Her head is practically split open as she licks the letter and seals it, shakily signing the name and address she knows by _heart_ on the front of it.

 _Chloe Price._

"It'll all be o-" Max doesn't remember anything after that, just her knees hitting the floor and when she opens her eyes, blinking and bleary, she's sitting on campus.

 **C. P.**

The trip up to Seattle is a lot like their time in Arcadia Bay, it turns out. Neither one of them's really ready to talk, yet, and Chloe's glad because the last thing she wants to do is _talk_. They don't have much money, just what Max's mother guiltily routes them, but since Max, for some weird reason, refuses to use it, they wind up in the truck most nights. It's become more of a home than Arcadia Bay felt like when they left it and the more cool air that dusts their cheeks and the heavier Max's body sags against hers, the more reality sinks in.

She's alive. Kate's dead. A lot of people died because she's right here, laying here, holding Max, and it scares her, sometimes, because one night Max leans up on the crook of her elbows and traces Chloe's jaw like she's a fucking rembrandt, shivering and quaking in response to the gentle touch, and even after all of this- _all_ of this-shouldn't all of the universe want her dead? Max included?

But Max looks at her like she's glad she's alive, and as messed up as it is, Chloe is glad, too.

"It's all so fucked up." Max murmurs above her, one night, hair hanging in front of star-lit eyes and freckles Chloe can't see.

"You want to add mind-reader onto that super-power list of yours, eh, Max?" Is the quiet retort and there isn't a breath of a movement that follows, maybe scared that if she moves too much, Max will revert back into that silent, pensive, broken thing.

"But I wouldn't change a thing. Not this time." Max finishes and Chloe can't help how startled she looks.

"Kate-" And maybe it's kind of messed up to ask-to protest-to put the blame on Max's shoulders when it's clearly on her own. Max flinches a little and Chloe's arms wrap tighter around her.

"I'm tired of thinking that the whole universe was out to get us." She eventually responds, forehead falling to rest on Chloe's collarbone, fingers curling so tightly in the fabric of her shirt that she's pretty sure it'll never press out. Not that she presses out her shirts. Ever. "I'm tired of thinking that it's my fault. Maybe I could save Kate on the roof but that...that wasn't my powers. That was me. And maybe I couldn't have done anything. Not this time."

Chloe tucks up Max's chin and Max looks so desperate that she doesn't know what to do-doesn't know what to say-because the _saying the right thing_ deal has always been more in Max's department than hers.

"I need to believe I couldn't have done anything." Max repeats-maybe admits-and Chloe tucks her nose back against her neck.

"Fuck everything else." Chloe immediately responds and Max curls into her. "You couldn't have done anything. You did everything you could've except off me and...who knows if that would've changed anything, right?"

"I did everything I could." Max agrees and for her sake, Chloe ignores the freezing tears against her neck, fingers smoothing underneath the fabric of a ratty jacket that the brunette's been wearing for way too long, now. They both probably smell to hell and back.

Not that that's really on her list of priorities, right now.

"Hell yeah, you did." Chloe kisses her forehead. "I bet, somewhere, with that big man up there of Kate's…" She swallows, because she hated when people said this to her about her Dad, but for some reason it feels different with Kate. "She's proud of you."

Max stills.

"Come to me, all who are weary and burdened," A small body barely sags. "And I will give you rest."

Chloe wants to ask if Max just quoted the fucking bible but doesn't really think it's the time because that's the most peaceful she's sounded in weeks-like maybe she let a piece of something go-and neither of them sleep, that night, but she spends all night searching the skies, holding Max and twirling two rings in her palm like a thoughtless habit, wondering if Kate was willing to rest so that both of them could stay awake.

 **M. C.**

Campus. Campus.

A hand raises up to her temple, the headache slowly fading into...whatever this feeling is everytime it happens. Campus. Blackwell. "Chloe?" She murmurs, shaking her head, looking down to see...oh, thank god, _pants_. Not khakis. No Vortex club or...anything. She's sitting underneath a tree, head whipping around to see...no one. Weird.

Max stumbles to stand, hand steadying herself against a billboard, fingers crumpling against some notice, or another. Her head lolls to the side, band posters and something about narwhals crumpling underneath her fingers-

 _They're real, Max. They're real!_ She remembers Warren exclaiming, eyes full of fire, Brooke nodding far too seriously for it to be at all ironic next to him. Did he ever say that, here? Did he ever even talk to her? Did that happen in any universe? Her head tips back, fully ready to see the bulletins she's read a thousand times stare her back.

"Well, Rachel, it's time to see whether you made it in this timeline, to-"

Max's blood freezes.

"No." Both of her hands raise up to the billboard and she can't hear anything, anymore. Her ears ring and her heart _stops_ and Max thinks the tornado must have finally gotten to her. It must've sucked up all of the air and her thoughts and all of Arcadia Bay because this is _wrong_. "No." She tears down all of the missing persons posters. "No, no, no, no, n-" It's a reprise, but she can't hear it. Over and over and over again.

Because there it is, clear as day:

 _Chloe Price Missing_.

Blonde and beautiful and smiling, chin ducked, someone cut out of the corner of the picture. It looks like a selfie taken by someone else where Chloe was meant to be the subject and Max realizes with sinking- _sinking fucking-_ horror, that it's a picture she took that she doesn't even remember. Five years she doesn't even remember.

Before Max can throw up, she's running off of the courtyard to a few stares and knowing, sad looks, heading towards the one place she's always prayed she'd never find her.

Rachel Amber is one of the onlookers, checkered shirt worn like a suit of armor, watching Max curiously from the front door of a school Max never knew they shared.


	2. Chapter 2

"It has two faces. Two paths meet here; no one has yet followed either to its end. This long lane stretches back for an eternity. And the long lane out there, that is another eternity. They contradict each other, these paths; they offend each other face to face; and it is here at this gateway that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: 'Moment.'"

-Friedrich Nietzsche - Zarathustra

 **C. P.**

Staying with the Caulfield's is a lot weirder than it ever was. It's like tiptoeing on eggshells made of glass because both of Max's parents look like they want to tug their daughter to their chests and never let go and it makes Chloe feel sort of shitty that she left her mom alone in her busted up home of a diner, in the first place, but they manage. At least neither of Max's parents ask why they sleep together, or why Max doesn't speak very much, or why neither one of them really eats, a lot, so Chloe guesses that part is cool, because maybe Mrs. C never really dealt with shit very well-that much Chloe remembers-but she does know how to leave her nose out of their business. She kind of always did. Mrs. C was the hovering kind of mom-always leaning over Max's shoulder but tugged the rest of the way back by Max's dad-and it worked well. Well, it always seemed to. Max never really complained about her parents.

Not that she knew Max at the age when it would've mattered if she did.

Max's room is kind of fitting. Not that it would be anything but, but the pictures scattered all around are all just so... _Max_ that it's hard to imagine her _not_ crouched over in the corner with a stack of polaroids and bright eyes. Ink-stained fingers and tucked knees and the way Max always bobs her foot while she thinks. Even if Chloe always hated imagining Max in Seattle, it's nice to know she had a bit of a home here (like hell she'll admit it to Max's face) because it's the sort of memory she wants of Max, now. Not the Max who looks so tired she'll pass out any second, but a Max nervously ripping open her acceptance letter to Blackwell in the corner, or snapping every picture she can and tacking them on the walls like she's painting a map of glossy prints to the future. A future she wants to be in.

A future where she doesn't feel like she's the one who destroyed her hometown. _Their_ hometown.

And it's all so hipster Chloe's ninety-sure Max got it all off someone's _pinterest_ feed. The black deco-lamp in the corner with a chip in it. The wooden dresser that's been rattled from Max tripping against it way too many times despite living here for, like, five years-Max still trips against it, Chloe notices, sometimes when she goes to the bathroom at night-accompanied by the series of pictures on top lined in a row. One flipped over that Chloe never un-flips, not nearly into the snooping thing as Max is. Closets mostly emptied because Max never had that many clothes, but more posters of pretentious hipster french films than Chloe even knows how to _start_ making fun of.

Yeah, she can imagine Max, here. And when they first walk in, dropping two backpacks on the floor, Chloe wants to imagine Max here, again.

They settle into the sheets like worn band t-shirts and eventually (a week, eventually) Chloe makes the right joke that makes Max smile and eventually (a week and an hour, eventually) Max tangles their fingers, at night, and eventually, eventually (longer and longer) in the bleary light of a city that Chloe used to irreversibly hate just because it was the place that took her best friend away in its rainy stupid jaws, Chloe falls in love with it because it's the place that gives her best friend back, too.

It's nearly a month after they dug through the wreckage when it happens.

Bidness as usual, Chloe's fluffing her head with a towel from the nearby bathroom, shamelessly using Max's toothbrush as she digs through a pile in the corner for clothes. She's pretty sure she tossed the clean ones over here, anyways, because it was still weird to hang _up_ shit in Max's un-used closet when they don't really know how long they were going to stay here, only underwear tugged up her legs, chest bare, when she hears it.

A snap. A flash.

Chloe blinks, leaning back up from the pile, toothbrush lazily hanging from her mouth when she blinks at Max, who's...apparently wasted like 10 bucks to take a photo of her without a shirt on bending over like she's the unclassy version of a playboy bunny. Or a kind of hygienic one.

"D'fuq, Mahx?" It's barely intelligible around a mouthful of toothpaste, but she can't really bring herself to care, because it's the first picture Max's taken in a month and Chloe was worried she might never take one, again.

Curling fingers are shaking the picture, knowing eyes not even looking at it, and...Max is smirking. Just like that, she's _smirking._ Her eyes are nearly light, and maybe that's what happens with change. Maybe it's slow and then sudden and then ever-lasting like the way her lights will flicker and then settle when her truck's low on batteries. "I wanted evidence for court when I finally nail you for using my toothbrush, you brute."

"I'll nail you alright." Chloe's too happy to even make it a double-entendre, tackling Max onto the bed, pinning her wrist into the covers (not both-never both), and Max is laughing-fucking _laughing_ -so Chloe, beaming and spitting the toothbrush to the side, does the only thing appropriate.

She places a big, sloppy, minty kiss on Max's mouth.

 **M. C.**

"No, no, n-Chlo. Chloe. Please. Please." Her fingers dig in dirt until they're red and bleeding. It's an echo of time-an echo of _Chloe_ -

 _Max. Max. Help me. Rachel. Rachel. She can't-she can't-plea-_

"-ease. Please. She can't. You can't. Chloe-"

A blue bag is the only thing she finds-bluer than Chloe's hair ever was-and Max doesn't worry about holding in her lunch, anymore.

In another world, the girl underneath her screams the same thing she does, only no one's here to hold her as she cries.

Chloe's dead, wrapped in plastic like _Laura fucking Palmer_ in the middle of a dump, and Max put her here.

What kind of world does this? Who does this?

"Chloe."

No one answers her.

 **C. P**

It's another week before they make it on the road.

Mrs. C tries to beg Max to go back to school and Mr. C wraps his hands around his wife's shoulders and shakes his head before it's decided that Max is never stepping foot in Blackwell again. They both do, however, try to keep Max in Seattle, and it's the only time she ever sees Max yell at her parents since that time they were eight and she found out the only reason her first dog got hit by a car was because one of her parents left the door open (that was an awkward, painful day for everyone. She never did find out what happened to Max's second dog). Chloe expected the catatonic thing Max sort of does when she has to deal with something. She expected Max to sort of smile, slim, and go with Chloe, anyways, but make it easier on her parents, but...nope. Super-Max, Chloe reminds herself, is human, too.

Too human to see all of that shit.

Instead she gets the only hint of a Caulfield angry, furious, screaming break down that she'll ever really see.

Max screams and screams until she can't scream, anymore, and Chloe somehow stops her from throwing a vase across the hall, holding her as she cries, and both of the Caulfield's look so guilty that the drop-out wouldn't know how to stay in this apartment, anymore, even if they were going to. So they leave that night. Not that they talk about it. Not that they talk much, period, anymore, but that's slowly getting better, too.

"Sneaking out in the middle of the night? I must be rubbing off on you." Not talking much, however, doesn't keep Chloe from prodding her a little. So subtly saying _loosen up just with me, Caulfield_ and maybe Max does-maybe she can see tight shoulders barely ease and Max's hands barely flex and her hold back just a little bit so that the older girl can walk closer to her. Or maybe it's all in Chloe's head. The air is cold-freezing-when they get outside, and when the doors of the truck close, Max wraps her scarf around a craning neck neck, a small trinket she'd nabbed off the rack of her mother's and Chloe hadn't asked why.

(She's noticed, though, that Max has started taking small pieces of the people she knows with her wherever she goes. A small pendant from the wreckage of the diner. A small action figure that must be that nerd Warren's. A cross. A picture. She took Chloe's blanket from her truck the night they got here and they've both slept with it, ever since.)

"You wish."

Chloe's surprised, nearly proud burst of laughter is enough to make Max's lips twitch upwards and small fingers reach across the console of her truck to tangle their fingers. It's a burn in her chest, itching for a cigarette, but she takes the hand, instead, because even if the air is freezing, she can suck it up a little bit longer to have Max smiling at her like that.

"Get me into bed with you enough, Super-Girl, and you just might find out."

Instead of answering, Max just takes a picture of her, the glint of the streetlights shining off her skin, and Chloe tries to pay attention to the road.

 **M. C.**

Max learns things about this world in rewound fragments of time. From snapshots she doesn't remember taking. She rewinds and rewinds and rewinds to moments she's never lived-to a Max with dark circles under her eyes and fingers clenching at a brown jacket-and when she asks Joyce what happened, she looks at her so sad that she never answers and Max never asks again.

Does she take away Joyce's daughter in every version of their story? Does she-Max can't remember, she can't-

It was never Rachel Amber that went missing in this world. It was a blonde Chloe who smiled so widely that the sun caught in her smile-the girl who learned to recover from her father's death because her best friend visited her every month, every cent she scraped up, and the world could never tear them down-it was the girl who didn't really care all that much about photography, but took Mark Jefferson's class, anyways, because she-

 _Guess I want to learn why this shit always makes you foam at the mouth, loser._

Max never heard Chloe said it, but she can imagine it. She can imagine her. She can imagine-

 _Chloe. Chloe. Chloe._

Chloe, who in this world, still had innocence. Chloe, who in this world, still had Max. Chloe, who in this world, died because Max didn't get into Blackwell until eight months after her. Chloe, who Jefferson probably painted with fingers and gently, meticulous tucks of his knuckles, and ash and dirt and blood.

Chloe.

 **C. P.**

They make it work. Max gets a job at a print shop around the corner and Chloe gets a job flipping burgers in a diner-like mother like daughter, right?-before they save up enough to go to the next town. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Max complains less about Chloe using her toothbrush, but she has this facial expression-this small little cute puckered up thing-that she throws at her every morning, anyways, and Chloe lives for it. She fucking lives for it. Which is good, because they barely have enough money to keep her cigarettes rolling, let alone anything _fun_ , so she keeps telling herself it's the fucking small things.

She's leaning over the beautiful peach linoleum of their latest hotel bathroom, plush blue shag carpet underneath her feet to match, using Max's toothbrush like it's second hand news when a tell-tale flash and click catches her attention. Yet again she's half-naked and caught in the act, leaning back to give Max an amused look, spitting in the sink before she smirks.

"What is it about me using your toothbrush that turns you on so much, Max?" Chloe wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, coming closer with a wink, "Seriously, do you have, like, a weird fetish you want to tell me about? Because we can totally make this toothbrush thing happen." If she makes a crude gesture with the toothbrush, it's only to serve a point.

Max, in true form, sets her camera on the bed in order to punch Chloe's shoulder. "Oh my God, Chloe, do you seriously have to turn everything into something sexual? You're so weird."

"Uh, Earth to Max-o, you're the one taking a picture of me half naked while I'm brushing my-hmph-"

For the second time, Max surprises her with a bravery she's never really felt. Because one second she's standing there tall and teasing the hell out of her, and the next there's a hand wrapped around the back of her neck and she's being tugged forward into a warm mouth and-oh. _Oh_.

Because Max is kissing her until Chloe can't breathe, anymore-until Chloe doesn't want to remember what it's like to breathe-and before she realizes it, she's pushing Max onto the bed and painting her skin with toothpaste like she has some kind of artistic talent other than fucking up. It's not the first time she's seen Max stark naked, and it won't be the last, but it feels like the heaviest. It feels like she fucking buries her heart, here, in this dingy, sort of dirty hotel room in the curl of Max's fingers and the way she parts her lips and the way her nails scrape against her scalp.

Max is nervous-visibly trembling kind of nervous-and Chloe hates that she's sort of nervous, too. So...they don't get very far. Past the stark naked part, anyways. Max jokes about not wanting her first time to be on a _porno set_ because neither one of them can keep that much up with the Kardashians but Chloe wonders if this is what it's like, being with someone who will tear the world apart for you time and time again only to patch it together in a quilt of fire. To steal her blanket and wrap it around both of them like it's a shroud of invisibility from the rest of the world. Chloe wonders if this is what it's like to be so in love that she doesn't really care as much about the sex as the light in Max's eyes (because she doesn't; she doesn't care about the sex, and up until now that's really never been the case). If she feels like she can bury a laugh in her best friend's neck because this is what it's _supposed_ to be like. All that... shit that love poems and movies are all based out of.

But Chloe's depressingly sappy thoughts are cut off by another snap. And an owlish blink. Max is naked and beautiful and laughing when she cups Chloe's cheeks and quietly-almost shyly-lowers her camera, another picture sliding out of its slot, gaze so soft that a mouth is dry above her and Chloe doesn't know what to _do_ with it. With a look like that.

"I know I said I wouldn't do it, anymore," Max's teeth tuck her lower lip and Chloe raises a hand to gently skim a thumb along a hint of warmth, "But if I ever have to jump back to a moment...this one isn't so bad."

Chloe kisses her so hard and so long and so much that they both miss work.

She doesn't have to wonder what to do with a look like that, anymore, she just has to figure out how to keep it.

 **M. C.**

Max rewinds and the world wonders why the new girl snapped and dug her nails into Mark Jefferson's jacket and cried because she can't dig her nails into his skin-she was never as brave as Chloe; never as brave as-

Max rewinds and the world wonders why the new girl disappears every lunch, not knowing she's desperately scraping nails (nails; always nails; she scrapes her nails at this world like she'd imagine Chloe would've scraped her nails against the lid of a coffin; like she would've scraped her nails at the _nails_ of a coffin, if she were here to have a chance) at the metal door underneath a barn because the code is fucking _different here-_

Max rewinds further and further until she finds her head in Kate's lap, delicate fingers brushing through dark hair, and she realizes that Max in this world tried to do everything she could to save Chloe, too-

Max rewinds until she goes further back and further back and reality stops making any sense, at all, struggling through a world she never lived in. It's a question that will be ironic when she remembers it: a question of figuring out how to get far enough back to make a difference.

Because she can rewind time, but she can never rewind far enough.

She makes it to the classroom, fast-forward...a moment later she's in the junkyard. She makes it to the dormitory, a month before Chloe was taken (she hugs her so tight and tackles her to the bed and apparently has such a huge knack for _science_ that Max can't even bring herself to care, just bury her nose in her neck), fast-forward...and she wakes up with her fingers wrapped around a blue bag. She makes it to the day she got her own acceptance letter, nose red and eyes shot, and gets on a bus, fingers desperately dialing Chloe's phone, and...fast-forwards to wake up at Chloe's funeral. She makes it to the day-the _day after he took her_ -and her knees quake and shake as she stumbles down a ratchety staircase.

Max recognizes where she is from the smell of formaldehyde and hay. She recognizes where she is because Max will never forget this stairway in any universe-this room-this place that took the love of her best friend's life.

And took hers.

She can hear the tornado and can hear a gunshot and can hear Chloe laughing on the phone and she can't make fucking _sense_ of anything, anymore. Her head just hurts. It's all jumbled. Like she took her journal full of photos and tossed them up in the air and tried to look at them all like a linear, cohesive picture. She can't remember where she is or when she is or who she is-

 _Chloe, chloe, chloe-_

That's right. Save Chloe. Chloe.

Another step and her head splits, stumbling through the heavy storm door, body roughly colliding with a table across the room, jostling red binders next to her as a shoulder roughly slams against the cabinet, catching herself. An owlish blink, gaze trying to focus, but all she sees are black spots. Brown. Frayed edges if-

 _I have constant surveillance-_

Jefferson. That sick twisted fucking bastard will see her coming-does he know her, here? Has she been accepted to Blackwell, here? Has she gone to his shows and idolized him on her knees, so innocent, before he captured that moment when she changed on a too-white dark room floor? With Victoria's blood staining her hands and Chloe's bullet-burned skull lying prone on a heap of lovely bones?-and Max somehow manages to keep moving, anyways.

Max's nose is steadily bleeding and when she catches herself on the nearby couch, she spots draped blonde hair and the relief in her chest is strangling. Blue eyes are fearful but _open_ and, even better, not lifeless.

They look petrified and pissed and worried and Max knows the look on her face to know that she can't quite talk, yet. Only watch.

Chloe.

 **C. P.**

They fight. A lot. But they always have. They'd always bicker and snipe and punch each other's shoulders and get on each other's cases (Max would tell her to can her drama and Chloe would tell her to can all of her hipster bullshit) because that's what best friends do. Turns out that's what ambiguous-not-ambiguous-girlfriend-best-friends do, too.

One of the worst of fights, though...it's nuclear holocaust kind of blow-out-it's the sort of thing that normally would break people up, and they're no different. But they are, too.

What's messed up is that Chloe will never even remember how it started. Not because of time. But because it's fucking stupid.

It's another rickety stay-in hotel, the windows rattling with the train that rolls by in some bumhick town outside of _Caprock Canyon_ in _Texas_. She's home from work, sloppily tossing her clothes on the floor by the unmaken bed, toasted and blazed and high as fuck because she barely caught sight of the date that morning. It's been six months since the tornado, and to shake up the pot, a _year_ since Rachel Amber disappeared out of her life without a single fucking trace, and that's about the extent of her mentality for the day.

She remembers knocking something over-a bowl, maybe, something thoughtless and inexpensive and as fragile as her quivering breath-and she remembers Max pushing through the door with a keycard and sunken eyes and a knowing look. Because Max doesn't forget anything but to call her best friend for five years, apparently, and when her hands so knowingly, so delicately, curl into tense shoulders, Chloe's screaming at her like she hates her because she _does_.

She hates the way Max hides pictures in her journal like she's ashamed of them, now. She hates the way Max hesitates everytime she looks in the mirror unless she notices Chloe's watching and then makes a point to act like she's not looking in the mirror, at all. She hates the way Max looks at her, sometimes, like she's going to lose her when max is the one that left and Chloe hates the way Max left and then _came back_. Because most mornings Chloe wakes up and thinks that Max should realize she's always wanted the other thing. She's always wanted the badge of honor on her chest. She's always wanted Kate squeezing her shoulder. She's always wanted that Everyday Hero award in california and that degree on the wall and going ape with that Warren kid (or whatever the fuck that meant) and that Chloe ruined Max's life like blood ruined Rachel's nails and Chloe _hates her_.

She hates them both. And she's so high she breaks another plate. And another. But what surprises her most is that Max fights back. That max must've learned to fight back in a room she never talks about with parted lips tasting like copper and Chloe breaks another fucking plate.

Her voice rattles the walls worse than the train when she's yelling about cereal and _Max_ is yelling about cereal and plates and rent they don't have and Chloe breaks another (another) fucking plate and that's when Max's cheeks are so red she could paint a western sun with them.

 _Golden hour,_ some part of her says, and Chloe hates that, too.

"Don't take your bullshit out on me, Chloe! If you want to talk about it, fine, but you can't just break all the plates we can't aff-"

"Maybe we could actually afford some shit if we went North like I said, but no, we had to come see the fucking canyon!"

"What, like going to _Toledo_ was really going to make us popstar famous and rolling in dough? God, maybe I'm not the time traveler, because that's some messed up timeline _you_ wound up in." Max snaps. "Do you even really know where Toledo is?"

"We'd at least be rolling _up_ something. Like some quality paper instead of this shit. And what are we doing here? What does it matter where Toledo is? It's not like you're going to take a picture of it! You haven't gone outside for anything but work since the tornado, Max." Chloe moves to break another plate and Max's hand wraps around her wrist, stopping her.

"Hey, Chlo-Hulk," The smaller girl snatches the plate out of her hands and slaps it down on the small kitchenette, "Calm down before we have to pawn your truck. I've gone outside."

"Bullshit. Name one time you've gone outside."

Max can't-she visibly falters, hesitates-and Chloe feels like such shit in about ten seconds for hopping all over it like a horny bulldog who smells blood.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, because some twisted fucking part of you likes it, doesn't it, Max? You like torturing yourself and living it all over again, right? Wasn't that week a fucking 'nough for you?" Chloe steps closer, eyes red-rimmed from far more than just the pot and it's the first time in their lives that Max actually takes a step back from her, hips flattening against the counter, and it's another reason for Chloe to hate herself.

"Turn down the drama from Eleven, Chloe. You know that's not true. Now you're just trying to tear into me, and I'm not-" Max's voice, however, sounds quieter, a little breathless, and there's something shouting through the anger for Chloe to just _stop_. "I'm not in the mood for one of your thoughtless tirades, today. So just...fuck you."

"You're not about to do that, either! You don't take pictures other than me and you won't fuck me, either, and you don't _sleep_ , and I don't get any of it! Isn't this what you wanted? For me to be alive? Well here I am, Max. I'm here and Rachel's still dead and Kate's dead and our hometown's fucking ripped to shreds, but here I am-here's your prize!" Chloe's hand slaps against the nearby cabinet, tears blurring her vision.

"Chloe, you're really-you need to calm down." Max still sounds faint-so much fainter-like she's struggling to fight, anymore, and Chloe notices the circles under her eyes. She notices the way her clothes hang on her skin like she's a skeleton. And they've been doing so well, haven't they? They've gotten so far, together. They've grown so much further, so why does she still feel like they're miles apart, sometimes?

"Your fucking consolation prize. That's what I am, right? We're stuck together for life just because you didn't have the balls to kill me?" She regrets it the moment it leaves her mouth, but she's not sober enough to catch onto it before Max is stilling next to her.

"What, so is that why you're with me? Because you think we're stuck together?"

"Oh, please, if Rachel was here, you wouldn't even be here, right now." And it's not how she means it. It's not how she means it, at all, and any trace of anger in Chloe's chest and in her stupid big fucking mouth leave in a sputter, whirling around. She wonders if this is how time travel feels for Max, like the whole world is out of control and off its hinges, only Chloe can't control any of it. "Shit."

She doesn't remember how the fight started, but she'll never forget the look on Max's face.

"That's not what I-"

"Real classy, Chlo." Max manages to bite, eyes closing so that Chloe can't see her-because that's what Max does. She closes herself off. She shuts down. She turns away and pushes Chloe away and out and _gone for five years_ and Chloe reaches out to her and tries to _fix_ it, suddenly a little desperate through the haze in her head.

"Shit-fuck-no, you know that's not what I-"

Max yanks away her arm from underneath Chloe's grip and she looks so weak and so strong and like the sort of thing she always imagined a star would look like right before it faded-like a beautiful mess of faltering contradictions, or some bullshit _gorgeous_ kind of thing like that-and, for the second time in a year, the brunette takes Chloe up on her bluff. Without a single word, she slams the front door, gone.

"Oh fuck." Chloe should chase after her. Chloe should bury her nose in her neck and wrap her arms around her waist and fall to her knees and weep at her feet as a pitiful, weak offering. Because Max changed the world for her. Max gave up the world for her. Max is the world for her. She still hates her and hates herself and hates today, but that's-

That's...what's it matter, anyways? Chloe's always been chicken shit. She grabs the bottle of tequila in the cabinet, instead, and drinks until she can barely stand, anymore. Which is bad, because halfway through the bottle she realizes how seriously she's fucked up, but she drinks the other half of the bottle, anyways, and she can barely stand up by the time she tries to fix it.

 _Max Max Max-_

 _Chloe you're so fucked up-_

"Where the hell are my key-oh, woah, fuck." Chloe slips on a broken dish in the small kitchenette and winds up with her keys in her palms. It takes her another five minutes to clamor up to the door, tossing it open to come face to face with the very person she was going to find. Even drunk Chloe can tell Max looks like shit and her heart sinks down into her stomach.

The same moment she trips and stumbles back to the floor. Max, being Max, drops down to wrap an arm around her shoulders like a superhero. Always fucking moral Max who won't take a breath for herself and shouldn't be helping her, at all, right now, and that only makes Chloe a little angrier, through the drunk, high haze.

"You're a really shitty fucking friend, sometimes." Max angrily whispers, but she still sounds so quiet-so distant-and Chloe wants to go back to when they were kids and chasing treasure maps in the skies with their fingers. There goes the anger.

"I know." Chloe murmurs, sloppily cupping Max's cheek. "I didn't mean it."

"What were you gonna do, go out there like this? And get yourself killed?" There's a bit of strangling fire back in Max's voice and Chloe blinks when she's suddenly on the bed. Did Max put her here?

"I wanted to find y-"

"I did not, I did _not_ ," Max is pulling away and moving over to the kitchen, voice furious and so far away, "Save your life so many times and finally get out of that hell hole to have you die drunk driving because you were an idiot and said-"

"I didn't mean it!" Chloe immediately interrupts.

"Shut up!" Max might break a plate, now. It sounds like it. Chloe's fucked. She's seriously fucked. She struggles to sit up and Max is spinning and crying and she falls out of the bed trying to get to her. "Oh, for-seriously?! _Chloe!_ "

"Shit." Chloe grumbles. "I meant because you left!" She tries to explain from the floor, upside down and suddenly looking up at Max, her hand coming up to still her pounding head. "I meant because you left." She says quieter (which isn't much quieter, at all) since Max is suddenly so close.

"I know what you meant." Fingers are so gently dabbing a cloth down her face, wet and cool and _good_ and numb reach up to grab the edge of a sweatshirt to keep the room from spinning. "And it still hurt like hell, Chloe."

"I meant I wish I was dead." Chloe over enunciates and Max does that closing her eyes again, turning away.

"Please stop explaining it. You're so making this worse."

"I meant I wish me being alive didn't ruin your life." Chloe's hands move up to sluggishly grab Max's neck, tugging her down until she's a heap on top of her.

"Chl-"

"I want her back." Chloe's voice breaks.

"Chlo." Max's voice painfully softens, then, and the other girl-super fucking Max-shifts despite Chloe's best efforts, to gently guide her to rest against her chest. There she goes, again. Putting Chloe first. Trying to change the world for her with warm, surprisingly strong arms for a stick, and eyes that are so hurt and understanding.

"I didn't mean any of it, I just want her back. I want you back." Chloe pulls her head up enough, heavy and sluggish and drunk, to meet Max's eyes. Repeating, "I want you back."

Chloe thinks Max never understands and she's too drunk to explain any further, only tangle their fingers and whisper _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ over and over and over again.

The next morning, they wake up on the floor with Chloe so sore that she thinks they're back in the truck and a blue eye squints awake to see Max staring up at the ceiling, already awake. A dusty swallow, shifting a little of her weight off of the small frame underneath her to reach up and drag the blanket Max had smuggled away from her truck off the bed and over both of them.

Max's head barely lolls to the side to look at her and Chloe can tell she wasn't able to sleep-can tell from the way her lips are barely parted and her eyes are barely focused and there's so little water in her eyes-and Chloe, whose head feels like it's about to split in two, shifts above her.

Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. She closes her eyes and _breathes_ and nearly vomits when she does but forces _words_ out, anyways.

No time like the present.

"I love you." Chloe opens them again and Max's attention is fully on her. She can't remember if she's said it since the storm. She can't remember if she's ever buried it in words along the creases of Max's knuckles or if that was just her heartbeat-can't remember if she whispered it along the crook of her neck or just breathed her in-but she says it, now. "I love you...so much, and I know I was an ass-"

"Huge ass." Max croaks.

"Huge ass." Chloe concedes.

"Huge Ass with a capital A. Ass."

"Capital A Huge Ass." Chloe reaches up to shakily brush fingers through Max's hair. "I just-" And she still doesn't know how to talk about it.

"You can't keep shoving me out of the door, Chloe." Max eventually whispers for her and Chloe realizes she's trying to keep those dry eyes dry, crawling up the rest of the way so that she can rest fully over a small body, fingers falling from hair to cup warm cheeks as she tries to block out the rest of the world.

"I don't want to." It's barely a murmur. She reaches up to brush dry lips over a forehead in a surprisingly soft gesture. "I never want to. I just-"

"This isn't going to be the part where you explain and you make it worse, is it?" Max grumbles but, in the smallest of undeserving miracles, leans up into her lips, anyways.

"I just _love_ you." Chloe finishes, instead, because she doesn't have to say everything else. She doesn't have to because it's Max. "And you came back."

"It was just a fight, Chl-"

"No, you came _back_." Chloe repeats, pulling up to look in her eyes and Max quiets. "And I have to stop trying to push you away." It's a hungover agreement, but one Chloe holds herself to.

"You have to stop shutting me out." Max boldy, quietly, continues.

"I have to stop shutting you out."

"You have to stop breaking all of our plates."

"You're milking this now, Max."

"You have to stop laying on top of me because you're cutting off the circulation in my body."

Chloe punches her shoulder but beautifully, beautifully, Max smiles. It's swimming and loving and still a little hurt and Chloe kisses her.

"I know you miss her." Max whispers against lips, shrinking a little backwards, like she's not sure how to talk about Rachel and stay so close to Chloe in the same breath. "And maybe it's stupid to even ask, but it's...getting better, isn't it?" Max asks what Chloe was thinking last night, blue searching blue. "It's getting better, for both of us."

"Max, every second you're here with me," She works a jaw stiff with juice and _juice_ before dropping her ear down to a steadily-beating heart, listening to it beat. "Shit's getting better every day." It's not their most eloquent make-up in the history of fights, or their worst fight, but it still feels important.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you, too."

That night, Chloe makes Max take off of work (and sells the rest of her stash to pay for all of the stupid damn plates, whatever) and cashes in one ticket to the national park a few miles outside of their little temporary shack of a home. She has to wear shades the whole time because of her massive hangover and the blinding sun, but she watches Max run her fingers over red rock and slowly-almost timidly-raise her camera up to catch the way the sun heats the rock. It's the first time Chloe sees it, watches her so visibly tense-falter before she takes the shot-back tense, and Chloe doesn't ask why.

Max, so much stronger than Chloe ever was, tells her anyways.

"Jefferson said I should always take the shot."

Dark hair hangs in front of barely-knit brows, eyes riveted on the only worn pair of shoes Max had tossed in their bag, fingers curling until white knuckles are a stark contrast to the camera she's holding. The sound of the wind whistling through the empty caverns is nothing compared to the faint, continuing puffs of staccato breath rumbling from Max's lips and Chloe tosses away her cigarette to walk up behind her, nose brushing along the dip of her hairline-up a jaw to right above the rim of an ear-fingers brushing underneath the fabric of a tshirt to rest on a soft abdomen. She holds her, close and steady, looking towards the rock like there's bottles lined up in front of them on a rusted car hood.

"So screw him and take all the shots he couldn't take away from you."

Two breaths later, the sun has shifted to something even better-even more radiant-but Chloe misses it (only catches sight of it later off the glint of a polaroid) because she's focused on the determined look on her best friend's face as Max leans back into her, raises the camera, and takes the shot.

 **M. C.**

Blonde hair is so carefully framed along a pale forehead that Max has no doubt Jefferson has been here and Max is moving despite the hobbling nausea in her chest-the pain in her skull-because she doesn't have long. She doesn't have long. Jefferson will be back and she doesn't know how long her mind will stay here, and she doesn't have long. Max knocks over the nearby table and tripod and light-

 _She remembers that saved her life, once. That saved David. That saved them both, but it didn't save the town. It didn't save Chloe. Did it?_

 _Did it?_

-and she skids to the floor on her knees.

"M-M...a...x…" It's so faint and fearful and lost that Max wishes the tornado destroyed the whole world with her in it, fury in her chest. Love in her dull eyes.

"I'm here." She promises, glad she doesn't have to explain why she knows exactly where the scissors are-because no matter what world, what timeline, Jefferson is _methodical_ -cutting the duct tape. "I'm here. I made it. I made it." She breathes.

"You're...bleeding." Chloe sounds like she might cry if the drugs didn't have such a tight grip. Max knows. She remembers. That searing part she'll _never_ forget.

"We don't...have time." Max shakes her head and tries to focus-tries to push past the memories of other times clogging her brain. She remembers another blonde here. Remembers Victoria. Remembers Kate in photographs. Remembers blue hair splayed over a couch. Remembers-remembers-shit. She shakes her head, slugging, and Max struggles to pull Chloe up into her arms, both of them tumbling to the ground.

"I...I can't, Max." The tears are coming now. Max can hear them clog her throat.

"I won't let you die." Max desperately tries to bring her further up in her arms. Tries to hold her. Wishes she'd used all that time-travel to do some reps so that she could lift her best friend up and away from a serial killer. But _ass-sight is 20/20_ as Chloe always said-always… (says, Max, says)-and she feels her ankle twist underneath the weight of the blonde, but struggles to carry her, anyways.

"G-get out of...here. He'll-he'll kill, you-"

Too.

The crack is louder than any noise Max has ever heard, because the last time this happened to Chloe, the _survivor_ was drugged, a needle piercing her neck. Max had felt like she was floating-drowning-then, but now she's awake. She's fully awake when Mark Jefferson appears around the corner, aim deadly as Chloe's head snaps back, perfectly-poised hair tossled from the sharp motion.

A bullet in the forehead, dead weight pulling Max into the ground like an anchor from a pirate ship that never set sail before Chloe can ever speak another word, and a noise rips from her heart out into the small room.

She watches Chloe slip through her fingers towards a sea of white, blue eyes unseeing as Max reaches out to her across the abyss, Mark Jefferson raising the gun as the world whirls around them.

 **C. P.**

Max's photo boxes slowly start to pile up, skewered towers of overwhelming, talented, hipster doom, and Chloe strikes a pose as she carries two of them towards the truck. "Hey, Artist, you gonna help carry any of this shit, or are you too scared of breaking a nail on your camera?"

Max takes a picture of Chloe flipping her the bird and tucks it in the sun visor in her car. Chloe never moves it.

 **M. C.**

She gets there ten seconds sooner.

" _M-a-x-"_

They collide with him. He tackles Max to the floor and Chloe, always trying to protect her (stupid dumb idiot), grabs his ankle.

He shoots her.

Rewind. Eleven seconds. She makes it eleven seconds. She grabs the nearby baseball bat on the way to Chloe.

" _M-a-x-"_

She smashes his wrist and the bullet ricochets off of the ceiling into Chloe's stomach like it's bouncing off of a bumper in the junkyard.

Rewind. Twelve seconds, Max panting and her ankle twisted. Baseball bat. She smashes the light.

" _W-ho-"_ Max snaps the scissors through duct tape and Chloe's nose turns into her neck. " _M-a...x?_ "

Max tugs Chloe into the closet and waits for Jefferson like she's him, hunched and eyes devoid of life as David comes around the corner. She smashes the baseball bat into his knee, this time, and he knocks her ankle out from under her.

" _N-n-o-"_

The baseball bat comes towards her head and Max grabs the gun and, for the second time in her life, pulls the trigger. It's far more satisfying than it should be. She hits him. She hits him right in his shoulder and she watches the way he recoils and his voice booms and Max doesn't even know if she sneers, but she feels like she might. But he's still alive-still alive-and Max is a murderer that will never be as the baseball bat comes further down and she-

Rewind. Twelve and a half seconds. She can't do anymore. She can't go further. She can't. She tries everything-does _everything_ -

 _Chloe shot. Chloe drugged. Chloe tripping Jefferson as the baseball bat smashes her neck-again, her wrist, then her head-again, her head and her head and her head-_

 _-_ everything and Max tries every picture she has. She tries everything she can. Chloe always comes here, greeting her with slouched shoulders and parted lips. She tries to go back further and warn her. Tries to tell Kate (Chloe dead)-tell Joyce (Joyce and Chloe, dead and buried)-tries to tell David (David and Chloe, dead and buried and burned like effigies or pictures in a journal)-and Max can't tell where she is, anymore, again.

She stumbles through the doors. Twelve seconds. Twelve seconds earlier, this is all she can do. All she can give her.

She cups Chloe's cheeks, her tears staining blonde eyebrows, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. "I can't, Chloe." She sobs, burying part of herself, here. "I can't. It was me. It was me."

Max realizes with horror the sixty-second life she lives here, holding Chloe desperately against her chest, watching Mark Jefferson push through the now-open vault door, gun poised in his hand like he's known-like he's always known-that she didn't change anything.

The first time she used her powers wasn't when she broke her camera. It was right here.

"I love you, Chloe." She whispers in her ear, holding her close, holding up a picture of a Seattle apartment, vision blurry, her blood staining the perfect picture of blonde. She feels Chloe's hands struggle against a drug-induced haze-feels them barely curl into her wrists-and Max just holds her. "I love you so much."

"Max." A tremble. Chloe's eyes are riveted on the gun pointed towards them, now, and Max can't blame her. It's the first time Chloe's seen it, and how fucking twisted is it that, for the first time, Max selfishly wishes he'd shoot her first? Her hand raises.

This was what it always was. Max always stayed in touch, and it always lead Chloe right here. She killed her. She always kills her.

Max goes back-she focuses on the photograph, never hearing the gunshot and never feeling the way Chloe's body would sag in her arms, again-she focuses until she's in the bright light of an apartment she used to call home, once. With a dog in another room and a picture in her hands. A dog that never barks. A letter she'd always written in her hands.

She rips it up, watching as it falls to lay against another piece of paper already torn beside it, not having to read it to know what it is. This isn't the first time she's done this-thought this-and Max has the uncanny, nauseating thought that Max never should have tried this. Never should have come here and changed this. Is this what always happened? Is this what happened in the beginning and Max changed it? Did she find out she had her powers and…

Is it Max? Is it _Max_? No matter how many times she meets her, is it Max that brings Chloe to her-

It doesn't matter. Max's hands tremble and she rests her forehead against the dresser, jostling it, a picture tipping over to rest face-down like she's closed the lid of a casket. She's never going to write her. She's never going to keep in touch, and Chloe will...will grow angry and hateful and hurt, but alive, and Max will find her then. She will find her then and never let go.

It's the first time Max decides that saving Chloe is more important than having her.


	3. Chapter 3

"But whoever would follow one of them on and on, farther and farther – do you believe that these paths contradict each other eternally?"

Friedrich Nietzsche - Zarathustra

 **C.P.**

It's not much of a Christmas, that's for sure.

Max is wearing this cheap pair of antlers she found at a dollar store and they're each other's trees, this year (they're each other's trees a lot of years, but she doesn't know that, yet). Chloe hangs tinsel on her like she's that short, half-grown tree in _Charlie Brown_ with stick arms and legs. Max finds these little hipster lights that she wraps around Chloe's neck like a scarf and Chloe still thinks it's one of the best Christmases she's had in years. Because it's peaceful, their fingers tangled as they lay in the back of the truck, the weak-ass hipster lights faintly glowing in and out of existence as Max falls asleep on top of her, world stretched above them.

Chloe runs her thumbs along the edges of the polaroid Max had taken a few seconds before she tucked herself in underneath the ratty blanket she'd stolen, wrapped around both of them like a shoddily-tucked Christmas present- _you need a new one for your wallet, anyways_ -this small little picture of Chloe wrapped in lights and Max wrapped in tinsel with ears and both of them looking sleepy and tired and...and something close to fucking happy.

Close to it. _Close to it._

Chloe smiles.

It's not much of a Christmas, that's for sure, but...it's theirs. And maybe that's a-fucking-nough.

 **M.C.**

Max is in the bathroom, again. Panting. No throw up this time-which is...good for her self-esteem, at least-trying to focus. She stumbles forward and catches herself on the bathroom sink. The dark circles underneath her eyes are gone but that just means there's nothing to highlight the wild in blue eyes, anymore. To frame the blood under her nose in a familiar juxtaposition (because the only thing that goes better with blood, she's learned, is _dark_ ) _._ She waits. And waits. And suddenly Nathan Prescott is in the bathroom. He says something to her, but she doesn't hear him, eyes riveted on the door.

She waits, because it's not Nathan she wants to see. It's not Nathan she _needs_ to see.

Ten seconds and Chloe walks through that immovable door in a halo of light and cigarette smoke and scuffed shoes, immediately repeating the same, _spontaneous_ sentence she always does, faltering when she sees someone else in the bathroom. "Who the hell are…" And then double-taking when she sees it's Max. Max, who she doesn't know and who must look too hollow for her bones.

Chloe's alive.

"...Max?"

Max's hand snaps up to cover her mouth, choking down the tears in her throat and the relief in her chest.

"What, you two know-oh, I get it, you're both gonna try to gang up on me, huh? You're both trying to use me just-JUST like everyon-"

"Nathan, no." Max immediately tries, hands raising. "Nathan, you don't need a gun for-"

She jumps the shark worse than Fonzi ever did because the gun isn't even out of his pocket, yet, and he pulls it out the moment it's referenced like it's been summoned, waving it a little too wildly, eyes a little too sunken and manic, and Max hates that Chloe immediately moves to step in front of her.

"You're both just trying to use me like-"

"Woah, woah, hey, Presco-"

"Nathan! Chloe, don't-"

Chloe moves to grab it, colliding with him, and the gun goes off. She can feel the recoil-can feel the way a bullet slams into a stomach like it's done a thousand times before-and Max consoles herself with the fact that at least Chloe doesn't die alone, this time, blue eyes full of fear and shock as Max catches her before she can hit the ground, arms wrapping around her waist as they slide to the floor.

"M-Ma-"

"Shh." Max wipes the hair from her eyes, glad to see it's blue, again, at least, "I'll stay with you, this time, okay? You're not alone. I'm right here."

"I'm...scar-"

"I know." Max kisses her and holds her and Chloe's crying and petrified and Nathan is crawling back into a corner and Max waits until Chloe's fully gone to raise her hand.

 **C. P.**

It's not really planned, and that makes it better, somehow.

The first time they wind up making love-making actual _love_ , who the fuck would've thought Chloe would've thought _that_ -is underneath the stars with the flat bed of her truck digging into their backs, that ever-present blanket curling over only half of their bodies as they whimper and groan and sigh and _breathe life_ into the grand canyon like no one's around to hear them because, on this side of the endless chasm, there isn't.

Fingers curl and their breath intertwines and it isn't long before they've created a cloud of mist that would've made Rose from Titanic jealous.

" _Chloe_ ," Max whispers in her ear and Chloe's hand raises up to cup her cheek, half-lidded eyes locked.

They've created chasms bigger than this. They've torn mountains asunder with their fingertips and parted lakes without a vengeful God's permission and Chloe has never felt so fucking _one with the universe_ as she does right now. Max's nails dig into her shoulder like Chloe's made of rock and ash and porcelain all at once and every single inch of arching, sweating, aching skin tastes like the way the air tasted after that tornado. Like sunshine on her tongue, warm and smooth. Like life.

Like life's changed.

Like she'll never breathe the same way, again.

It's sloppy and slow but Chloe still never knew it could be like this. She never knew someone could hold her so tight and so close-so desperately and so _lovingly_ -fuck, she never knew someone could _hold_ her, at all, until Max's hand curls around her hip and brings her closer. Until Max. She never knew she could trace Max's heartbeat against the pulse in her wrist with lips and tongue-could feel it sway like the ocean would against the beach, rocking against the tide when she bites at her skin-and feel her heart fall in rhythm with it. She never knew this feeling in her chest _existed_ , let alone while she _fucked_ someone, and when Max's lips bury themselves in between her breasts, Chloe's pretty sure there's a lot of things she never knew.

There's a lot of things she never knew she was missing.

Until Max.

When their hips slow down, both of their bodies molded together with sweat and a red string Chloe can't see, she starts to see why people always made this such a big deal. This love thing. It's in the way Max lets out a relieved, almost lazy smile-in the way her hair is fanned out over the rusty truck bed, barely illuminated by the single moon above them, sweat cooling and nipples still hard-in the way Max's hands push the bangs out from Chloe's eyes with such a knowing, happy grace. It's in this.

Max looks at her like she loves her and Chloe doesn't have to see the reflection in her eyes to know that Chloe looks at her the same way.

Chloe never knew it could be like this because she's never been in love like this, before.

"Told you you'd like the Grand Canyon." Max pipes up, breathless and smiling and they both laugh until they can't, anymore, tired, happy arms tugging the brunette fully against her as Max wraps the blanket the rest of the way around the both of them. They'll have to jailbreak, soon-they've both been on the news thanks to Arcadia Bay, enough, they don't need to add a public nudity tag on the list (though Chloe's sort of debating the trade-off)-but for right now, she just... enjoys it. She enjoys being young and in love and alive with Max cradled safely against her.

"Hella." Chloe's smile spreads so wide against Max's damp forehead that she's sure she can feel it, "If this's what you plan on doing, we can make as many detours on this road trip as you want."

Chloe learns a little more about Max when she gives her a surprisingly impish look.

They wind up taking every detour they can.

 **M.C.**

Everything. She tries everything (everything-everything, like how she thinks she might've tried to let Chloe die, once, but couldn't) like she never has, in this moment, and none of it matters. It always leads to a pool of blood-a pool of _Chloe_ in the middle of a bathroom-and Max pushes through. There must be something ( _something_ ) a flick of the wrist or the gasp of a breath or the skid of her shoes. She must be able to shake the world without raising her hand and fucking up time. She has to be able to change Chloe's stupid fucking fate without her powers -

 _But you're not enough, Max. You're not enough, Max. You're not en-_

It's this moment that started it all, there must be something in this moment that _ends_ it. But that's not how the world works and soon Max turns into fragmented sentences of a children's book that Kate might never write. One-dimensional notions of a character she can't remember. See spot run; see spot die. A noun and a verb added together and that's it-that's her life. A simple, fucked up poem.

 **See Max.**

Max screams. Max runs. Max tackles.

Max cries. Max fights. Max mediates.

Max screams. Max runs. Max _shackles_.

Max cries. Max slumps. Max loses.

Max punches. Max sinks. Max bruises.

Max tries.

-Max tries.

 **Chloe dies.**

 **Chloe dies.**

 **Chloe dies.**

 **Chloe dies.**

 **Chloe dies.**

 **Chloe dies.**

 **C.P**

They've been to their 16th state by the time Chloe sees the pattern in Max's pictures every place they visit. They're not...Max-kind of things. They're flowers. Kids. Bunnies shitting rainbows in the woods and puppy dogs eating ice cream kind of pictures and when Max stoops down to take a picture of two kids holding hands on a playground, Chloe's starting to wonder if her lover's hit the _joyous_ or _going crazy_ stage of grief.

When Chloe casually- _What the fuck's up with the pictures, lately, Mary Poppins_ -asks about the pictures in the truck, one afternoon, the sun setting behind the hills as Max shuffles the snapshots of joy and seemingly re-arranges them (orders them like there's a purpose) before she looks at her over her shoulder, Chloe gets a pretty straightforward answer.

"I'm taking them for a friend."

"What friend of yours wanted a picture of-okay, seriously, that's a picture of a frog in a kid's palm, Max." Chloe laughs so hard it's more of a cackle than anything and Max bumps their shoulders.

"Maybe I'll show you, someday."

There's something about the way that Max says it that makes Chloe stop laughing and search her face. She looks like a serene kind of statue. Like she's peace incarnate, knees bent like a pretzel and pictures splayed out in front of her, eyes closed as the sun slowly takes away the light in a closing window pane of darkness over her features. But there's a small smile there-the smallest hint-and the fading hues of pink in the sky are enough to where Chloe can see her freckles and she looks...content. Content and beautiful and Chloe realizes she's been staring so long that the ash of her cigarette burns her fingers.

"Yeah." She swallows and scoots just a little closer, because if Max is gonna soak up the sun like a plant, maybe Chloe can soak up her, "Looking forward to it."

 **M.C**

Gunshot. Rewind. Gunshot. Rewind. Gunshot. Rewind.

No matter what she does, this one will always be the same. This picture. This fragment of time. This stupid fucking butterfly on a can and Nathan Prescott and Chloe Price and Max Caulfield-it never changes. How many times does she have to kill Chloe before she gets it? So...she lets it go. She crawls over to lay next to Chloe's body when Nathan runs out, gently petting fingers through limp blue hair and maybe it's kind of gross and morose and pretty _Edgar Allan Poe_ to lay here in a pool of her dead best friend's blood, tired and exhausted, but she just...needs a moment. Just a minute. She needs time.

Because Max is so _tired_. She can barely remember running fingers through blonde hair as she held her when five years ago were different, and she's sure she'll forget this, too.

Max, laying here, feeling red seep into a gray jacket as Chloe stares lifelessly past her, gets it-knows this really must've been how it always went. How fucked up. If she can't change anything, now, then she really couldn't change anything five years ago in a too-bright room in Seattle. This isn't the first time she's done this. This whole thing.

But she wants it to be the last.

"How many times have I come here, Chloe?" She asks to the too-still bathroom. "I guess staying in touch with you made it worse, but I'll...I'll still make it right." Max promises, too tired to cry as David pushes open the door, Max pressing lips over a cold forehead. David is holding a taser on her and he sounds so sad, so shocked, but so _ready_ that Max wonders for the first time what that war really did to him. (What this war's doing to her, because she can't even cry, anymore, laying next to Chloe like this, and what the hell is _wrong with her_ ). "You call me Super Max for a reason, right? So...so we'll figure out the tornado. No big deal, right?"

David raises the taser but she doesn't hear him shouting.

Chloe doesn't answer as Max pets bloody fingers through her hair.

She rewinds.

 **C.P.**

Max's first tattoo isn't anything Chloe would've picked-it's better-and they go to get it a year and a half after the world's been laid waste to a storm. It's not her girlfriend's name or an etching of her favorite animal or some kind of hipster, lovey-dovey quote, or something...it's a crumpled piece of paper that Max carries around in her pocket like a priest and a cross. It's this small little drawing full of life and art and pastels. It's signed in the corner with initials Chloe's memorized only from tracing them in the faint corner of Max's heart after the ink's finished.

 _KM._

It's a cartoony kind of picture with two girls holding hands and it feels like a random day in the middle of nowhere that Max finally sits up in bed, nods, and tells her like it was this inevitable decision that she's _ready._ Chloe doesn't need to ask and they hop in the truck without a single word, the rattling twist of the engine the only confirmation she needs to give her other than the stone-cold grip Max's got on her hand the whole drive.

Chloe's surprised Max doesn't twist her hand right off.

"It's gonna need to be touched up a lot more than B and W's." The artist warns the moment they get Max in the chair, that vice grip still so tight on Chloe's hand that she's pretty sure she won't be able to use it for a week, but...whatever. She doesn't complain. Not out loud, anyways. Not when Max needs her here.

"Would you just get the fuck on with it, already?" Chloe snaps because Max already looks way too small and out of her element in this chair and the guy is so close to her breast that she's already ready to knock him out. "The lady told you what she wants, do it."

She must've said something right, because Max squeezes her hand and lets go for a minute before going right back to circulation-cut-off-city. Free fingers smooth away dark hair from her forehead before gently-gently-kissing warm skin.

Max looks up at her with a quiet, gentle look.

"I think Kate would've loved it." Chloe tells her.

Max smiles this sad kind of beautiful thing and that makes never having feeling in her right hand again worth it.

 **M.C.**

The bathroom is familiar. She's laying in the middle of the floor of it, holding nothing, and she has to sluggishly get up when Nathan walks in, surprised to see her there. Slowly, she moves towards the edge of the bathroom, body not even bothering to slide down the edge of the stall as the world spins around her, blood staining her mouth like lipstick. Like Victoria's _couture_ she hides in her bag like a secret weapon to smear over mirrors and wrists and tongues.

Max's lost a bit of herself, here. There's always a piece of her that's scared that Chloe won't come back, one time-that she'll lose her-and she's lost a bit of herself, here, but she won't lose Chloe.

Chloe, who pushes open the door and maybe Max can't cry, anymore, but she can feel _relieved_. She waits until the gun's out of Nathan's pocket to throw the alarm. She'll do all of it again-and again and again-until she doesn't have to, anymore.

She listens to Chloe's tattered shoes run away, echoing throughout Blackwell's halls, and finally slides down the too-white wall-she's tired; she's too tired-mind fraying around the edges as she rubs at her temple and sees black spots and browned edges and forgets.

 **C.P**

Somewhere along the twenty-seventh state Max's photo spreads look a little more like herself-a little bolder and darker and stronger-and somehow, they wind up double dog daring each other to jump back into the swimming pool of life, again. Chloe double-dog dares Max to submit her photos for actual commissions, and Max double dogs Chloe to get her GED.

Both of them are so stubborn it actually works.

It's stressful. It's beyond stressful. And if Max teases her one more time about being _good_ at science, she's going to shove her out of the car, but now they fight as much as they always have but bang like bunnies, too, and Chloe can't bring herself to change a single fucking thing.

 **M.C**

Where is-where-

Oh.

Oh, _fuckballs._

"Do _not_ shoot the car bumper."

"Car bumper? Aye aye, Captain Plan-Fuck!"

"Chloe! Chloe, fuck, I said _don't_ shoot the-"

"Rewind! Rewind!"

 **C.P**

It's weird, holding a degree in her hand, but Max looks so proud of her that she almost thinks all the tests were worth it.

Almost.

It's a shitty little _GED_ but Max tackles her to the bed and tangles their limbs and they order pizza and find someone to buy them a cheap bottle of wine (like two kids spilling and staining and laughing) to celebrate. And that night maybe it's a little weird that she traces the initials _KM_ on her lover's heart with her tongue, but she's thankful to be alive and here and the way Max's breath hitches is totally worth it. It makes everything totally worth it.

No almost. Just worth it.

Max holds her so close sometimes that Chloe feels like the world's stopped moving and when they're in New York they find a home in this small little dingy shit-sty of an apartment that's as big as Chloe's closet used to be in total and costs more a week than a month at any single hotel they've ever been in. And Max decorates it in pictures and life and a string of the most _hipster_ fucking lights Chloe's ever seen in her entire life above their totally classy air mattress bed.

 _They remind me of Christmas-_

\- _So you can't just wear the fucking antlers all the time?_

 _I really don't think I want to hear about that kink, Chlo._

 _-Oooo, fiesty. I_ _ **am**_ _rubbing off on you, Domi-Max-ress._

 _The company I keep._

(The same lights two weeks later that they knock down both screaming when a rat comes out of the bathroom, Max holding them like Indiana Jones and Chloe grabbing the nearby pillow to smother it Godfather style. They refer to it as the 'ratfestation 2k16' from then on out.)

Turns out it's hella easier to settle down with Max than Chloe ever would have thought.

It's a little bit rocky figuring everything out, but...it's their first home. It's _home._ It's the first place Max frames Chloe's GED (to a whole shitton of protest) and her first ever official commission. It's the place where Max kicks up her feet into Chloe's lap while they eat takeout and listen to the sound of the city and their neighbors fighting through the thin paper walls. It's the place where Chloe has her 21st birthday (drunk off of _mid-priced_ box wine, this time, the classy shit!) and Max has her 20th and they make each other macaroni necklaces for their anniversary out of stale pasta (and a fuckton more box wine; not a key component of the necklace, but definitely key in the making of, behind the scenes).

It's the place where Chloe gets accepted into a shitty community college across the city (that they eventually figure out how to pay for without both of them going into debt up to their eyeballs. For the most part). Where Chloe learns Max really can play guitar and where Max pawns that same guitar to buy Chloe a new chain for her bullet necklace one Christmas. Where Chloe devotes her life to unraveling time with logic and _science_ , no matter how much Max makes fun of her for it (and encourages her and tries to act like she pays attention when she talks).

Where Chloe's hair goes from blue to purple to blonde to a short-lived red; to long to short to blonde, again. Where Max's grows long and short and long and incidentally short again from the bubble gum incident (infamous and irreverent, the hallowed eve where Chloe had accidentally fallen asleep with bubble gum in her mouth and had nearly choked on it. It wound up getting it in Max's hair, instead; that was an awkward explanation for the barber down the street, so Chloe learned how to cut hair, that week) and has only gotten longer and longer, since. Where Chloe learns how Max likes to pin her longer hair up with pencils in the morning and where Max always greets breakfast with arms around a waist and a kiss to a shoulder. Where Chloe stops smoking so much and where Max stops having so many nightmares and where, right before they leave, Max lands her first gallery.

It's the place where they cry and fuck and go home-really home-for the first time together, a home that isn't on wheels and isn't under a different set of stars every night. It's the city they build together and every holiday is spent trying to avoid both of their parents coming to see what a shithole it is. _Their_ tiny little shitthole.

(One year Vanessa and Ryan visit, anyways, for Max's birthday and both of them try not to shift when they come back to the entire place cleaned from head to toe. Which made Chloe sort of wonder if Max was the only one with super powers because it's not like either of the C's had a key).

They spend four years there and a week before they leave, Max finally shows Chloe a catalogue of pictures, all organized and...beautiful. It's too bright of a display for the nearly-bare apartment and she finally _gets it_ when she sees the carefully crafted and drawn counterparts tucked underneath the happy photos.

"Kate always wanted to write a book." Max murmurs, Chloe's hand sliding up from behind her to trace the small figure on girlfriend's heart, long since memorized, remembering that day in the truck where Max had promised her _someday_. "She asked me, once, if I'd take the pictures for it."

"So that's why you've been hoarding them for years." Chloe hums, chin falling to rest on her shoulder, their fingers thoughtlessly tangling as blue eyes search the long line of photos. At the start is a picture of Max and the girl Chloe never actually met. She picks it up.

"Her dad finally sent me the rest of her drawings. It took them a few years to…let them-"

"Yeah." Chloe finishes the thought, squeezing Max's hand. After a long moment, she kisses her neck. "It looks great, Max. Seriously."

"Yeah?" Max is never one to outwardly ask for reassurance, not about her photos, so this must be important. This must be heavy. This must be Max's friendship bracelet that she always carries in her pocket.

"Yeah."

And there's that look.

Lately, Max drifts off into space, sometimes. It's never for long and never a daydream, it just looks like she's unfocused, for a moment, and then twists the lens on her life and comes back. The brunette looks at the picture and Chloe worries, for a moment, that maybe she's focused too hard, that maybe she's gone back, but eventually there's this blink-this shift-and that small little smile that quirks up her lips like the creases in warm, recently pressed hotel sheets. It's a look accompanied by the quietest shake of the head, like Max's forgotten where she was, maybe just for a moment. But it's easy to not ask questions when, wherever Max went off to, the first thing she does when she gets back is wrap Chloe's arm tighter around her.

That night, in their empty apartment, Chloe helps Max bind a book that's not finished for years.

It's twilight zone level freaky how much crap they can fit in such a small little space after living there for four years and it feels so weird to pack it all up. To pack their lives up into the truck like they used to every month or so. But everything still fits on her old baby (even if Max's photos are starting to test Chloe's shocks a little) including them and when Chloe untucks the visor, there's a smirking picture of her flicking Max off to greet her and everything feels good and sad and just like it's always been while not being the same, at all.

Like leaving a home is supposed to be, not like how leaving Arcadia Bay was.

"Alright, Mad Max. Start up the tunes, it's time for new horizons. Things to see, people to do, a new block to terror-" She's cut off by a familiar ring and Chloe watches it, then. "Max?"

Max holds up a hand and Chloe watches the color drain from blue eyes. Max doesn't say anything-she doesn't have to say anything with that look on her face-Chloe stamps down the worry and the questions, reaches across the dashboard to catch her hand, and starts the car to go somewhere else, entirely.

 **M...P.**

Max is panting- _panting_ -and she feels like she should be kneeling when she's standing. _Entropy_ her mind says, but it all feels so foggy, so faint, like she's staring at blurred, faded faces of a Bokeh shot she never took, and a necklace that she doesn't remember hangs from her neck. She groans. Stumbles. A hand shoots up to her temple and when she catches herself on a door, she feels a familiar, warm hand on her back. The muscles in it settle and she wonders why she knows it's Chloe before she even looks.

 _-ou always know it's me, Super Ma-_

 _-aybe it's because you're, like, as sneaky as a cow-_

Her head sears. Pounds. Rocks and quakes and _splits and-_

"Max?" Max slowly turns around, her head light and her stomach clenched and...Chloe. Chloe, whose eyes are bright and blue and young and Max raises a hand to cup her cheek in a way that makes her best friend visibly concerned. And maybe a little uncomfortable from the look on her face, brows knitting a little bit and a rare hesitation on lips. A pause. Max feels like she's trying to wrap fingers around mist. "Shit," She draws out the _t_ , "Max, does someone run me over with a gurney, or something?"

Max looks around. Gurney?

Gurney.

"Oh."

"What?"

"But…" She murmurs, swaying until Chloe catches her, voice small and confused and faint, "I don't have a picture of the hospital."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author Note:** And then this was where things got weird. I feel like I've pulled an Evangelion. You thought this was a normal fic, didn't you? **Also:** I realized I accidentally forgot very, _very_ important quotes at the start of each chapter for this fic. I thought I added them but...did not. So if you want a bit more of a comprehensive read, feel free to note the quotes at the start of each chapter that are now there. And I'm sorry. I'm just sorry for this fic. It only gets worse, oops. But, uh, thanks everyone for reading! :)

 **Yarn's aren't spun-they're unraveled.**

" _Behold, this moment! From this gateway, Moment, along, eternal lane leads_ _ **backward**_ _: behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever_ _can walk have walked on this lane before? Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been done, have passed by before? And if everything has been there before – what do you think of this moment?"_

-Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

 **C.P**

Chloe thinks it's the most messed up thing to be grateful for, that her dad was hit by a car and not _this_. Mr. C has always been pretty stoic, but the quiet rumble of _Honey, maybe you should...come home_ was a tough blow that still looks like it's etched on Max's face. All of their stuff was already in the car and there was no question about skipping class, so they drove to Seattle the next couple of days, buying silence in puffs of cigarette smoke and worn fingertips running along unfamiliar hotel windows like they've seen them all before, silence stretching between them like hundreds of miles of highway.

Vanessa is okay, for now, but it's like watching the ash burn off the end of a cigarette and all Chloe can think is _she didn't look like this at New Year's_ so she can only wonder what is rattling around the brain attached to a retro camera. Not that Max tells her. She got her stoicism from her dad (Mr. C who insists that she calls him Ryan and Chloe just _can't_ ), Chloe's pretty sure, and they're both just eerily silent in a way that reminds her of being a teenager and staring at a casket all over again. Which is something that she hates.

A lot.

A-fucking- _lot._

Chloe, who's alternatively gotten her stoicism from her mother, looks like shit and talks pretty often but makes them breakfast every morning because that's what _she_ knows how to do and they're there for a week by the time Mrs. C's back from the hospital. There's something about the way Max looks at the life support machines in her mom's room, helping set them up, that looks _familiar_ and Chloe decides, selfish, that she (for once) doesn't want to know what that look means. Not when Max looks at her for so long the moment a methodical beep sounds around the apartment.

Max doesn't cry until the second week they're there, burying her nose in Chloe's neck, and all she can do is hold her. "She'll be okay," Chloe reminds her, "she'll be _okay"_ but they've both had such near-scrapes with death (Max's seen it over and over and over, again, and Chloe _forgets_ , sometimes, until moments like these) that she doubts the brunette believes her. But she holds her like she wants to.

Maybe they've been through too much for Chloe to promise shit like that, anyways.

Max doesn't cry, after that, and the blonde isn't sure if she's glad or wishes she would.

It's another week and Chloe can tell she's not the only one getting antsy and she tries to come up with any excuse it'll take to get Max out of here (all of her professors are letting her turn in her shit online but she can't take Max looking like this, anymore) and they're packing back up the brunette's room a day later with Max promising to visit every month.

This promise, Chloe thinks, Max will keep.

The front door slams when Mr. and Mrs. C head out to physical therapy the morning they're packing and she catches Max doing it out of the corner of her eye, again. That zone out thing. Blue eyes are lingering on a dresser, fingers skimming along worn wood like she's lost there-like she's someone else-and when Max looks up her brows knit like she doesn't expect Chloe to be there.

Chloe wonders if she ever does, sometimes.

"You okay?" It's a stupid question and Max's head snaps to the front door a good five seconds too late, like she's just now registering that it's slammed.

"Did they leave?"

"Yeah."

There she goes, again, eyes back to her dresser all curling fingers and fleeting looks, and Chloe walks up next to her, taking in that same down-turned picture on top of it that she vaguely remembers from four years ago. "It was...it was nothing I thought I just-"

"What is it?" The hesitant tone of Max's voice catches her attention.

"I thought I just heard Sparky, or something, I guess. I just thought I was…" She almost finishes the sentence. Almost. "Nothing."

It's weird. And something about it clenches Chloe's chest.

"You didn't...jump, or rewind, or-"

"No." Max's hand gently moves up to her nose to check for something-something Chloe realizes a few seconds later is probably _blood_ -and when she doesn't find anything, there's this sigh of near relief that Chloe doesn't miss as her hand falls back down to her side. "No."

"Whatever happened to Sparky, anyways?" Chloe asks, curious and quiet and Max's eyes linger on the side of the door as her fingers brush along the wood like she's felt it a thousand times. There's that same picture tilted over on the dresser like it's been jostled, and smoke-stained fingers gently tuck it up, surprised at what's been waiting to greet her for years: them. Young and back before Max left to the big rainy city. She's not sure if it sucks or if it's fitting that Max always had a picture of Chloe not far out of reach when Chloe shoved all of hers underneath boxes of things where she'd never look at them. Or tucked them in her wallet, where she'd pretend she never looked at them, at all. All Chloe has are pictures of Max, now, safely guarded in her pockets and phone like a well rolled cigarette, never leaving too far from her side.

Sometimes she remembers that night in the hotel room with toothpaste and light, quiet eyes accompanying a smile that was so rare, back then-remembers Max waving a polaroid picture and murmuring _this moment wouldn't be so bad_ -and Chloe thinks that's why she keeps so many moments so close, now.

Like none of them would be so bad to go back to.

"He, uh, he got hit by a car." Max says like she's a thousand miles away, and maybe she is. Chloe turns away from the dresser to move behind her, hand thoughtlessly smoothing over a bicep.

Because good fucking going, Price. Mention the dead dog.

"Oh." A shifting pause, "Shit."

"I left the door open, one day, like an idiot and he-" Max moves to turn around and maybe things are different about this apartment or maybe she's just about as clumsy as she's always fucking been because the brunette stumbles a little against the dresser, a noise of surprise leaving her throat as Chloe moves forward to catch her.

"Shi-ow." She grumbles, rubbing at an elbow, and Chloe smirks, maybe a little glad to be off the topic of all the death Max feels like she's caused for just a moment, arm wrapping around her waist to pull her close, because it reminds her of all of those times Max bumped into it on the way to the bathroom years ago.

"You alright, there, Maximum Injury?"

"Shut up." The protest is immediate and Chloe watches as her brows knit.

"I'm sorry about Sparky. I know you loved that mut-"

"Huh." Max stoops down, dipping from underneath her arm, which is a little cooler now, to swipe up two pieces of crumbled paper. She looks curious and there's never anything good about that kind of look on Max Caulfield. Chloe knows.

"What is it?"

Max turns the paper in her hands and instead of watching the crumpled thing, Chloe watches her girlfriend's face, instead. That curiosity morphs to confusion-confusion that turns into understanding-and, worse, instead of staying there _that_ look, that understanding, turns into this horrific, twisted kind of thing. The sort of look Max gave her when they were standing on a cliff-top with a tornado a mile away from them, the whistling of the wind so damn loud they had to scream to hide the break of their voices. Only there isn't determination there mixed in with it. Not this time. There's just…

Shit, Chloe doesn't even know what it's _called_. It's just…

It's just sad.

"What?" She repeats, "Come on, Max, that look is kind of freaking me out."

Wordlessly, Max hands her the two ripped pieces of paper that the blonde turns over and over again in her hands. They're crumpled and torn, hastily tossed somewhere where they'd be _forgotten_ , not lost, and she blinks at the name, barely legible from years of smear and dust, on the front. "They're...letters? O...kay."

"Chloe." Max presses in that tone of voice that makes Chloe look again, unfolding one of the torn flaps.

"They're...torn letters…" A long pause, slowly looking up. "To me?"

"Look at the date." Max insists, voice wavering a little at the edges, fingers curling around her wrists like she wants to keep her here and Chloe's pulse jumps underneath them.

"You-" And it comes out broken, at first. Confused, like a young stupid kid who never expected the knife in her back. Like she never expected Max to write letters. To her. The day after she-

She needs to sit down.

"Why did you-" Chloe can't stamp the anger down. She _can't_. Because Chloe needed her-she fucking _needed_ her-and from the tears in Max's eyes, Max fucking _knows_ that. She knows it. She always knew it. "All of this time I thought you tossed me out, and you did?" It rips from her throat like she isn't in her twenties, like she's thirteen and furious and watching the world bleed from her busted knuckles. "You just...you threw it out! Why? Why didn't you-"

"I don't know!" Max nearly _implores_ , eyes a little lost, and Chloe doesn't want to deal with any of that hurt bullshit swimming in blue, right now.

"That's shit, Max. That's total bullshit." The room is suddenly too bright and there's too much space but not _enough of it_ and Chloe wants to break everything. She wants to scream and bury her nails in wood and knock Max's stupid dresser over and shake her and cry in her neck and-and she's too old for this. She's too old for this. Because Max was never supposed to hurt her, and she always did. "I can't believe you-"

"Chloe, tone down the drama!" Chloe's head snaps up, eyes wild and Max's hands both snap up with them, like she's trying to temper a lion, "Okay, I didn't mean that like it sounded. Shit, that was just reflex. You know I'd never-"

"Toss me out like trash behind your dresser?" The other letter flutters out of its worn envelope the moment it hits Max's shoulder, the girl grabbing it and clutching it in her hand.

"Never!" She repeats, voice so full of conviction and that unwavering, tense stare she gets when she _means_ shit and Chloe, in this moment, might actually hate her. Might hate her like she quietly did when they were living out of two backpacks and the back of her truck. Might hate that sincerity in her gaze, because it doesn't make sense-it never has-to look at her like she's worth so much and paint her shoulders with lips and smiles and _memorials_ when Max went on and left her. "Chloe, I don't remember-I never would have-I don't know why I never wrote you." Max sputters. "I figured it just...I thought we just...I don't know, okay? I don't know. I don't know." Ink-stained fingers raise up to frustratedly push through dark hair and Chloe's immediately reminded that they aren't here on vacation. That they're here to pack up her dad's stuff-that they're here to help her mom recover-that they're here to fix broken remnants of Max's life so that they can move to a better apartment. That they're here for Max. But some wounds never heal. "I don't remember."

Chloe moves forward to grab her wrists. Both of them. And Max's breath hitches and she looks away and Chloe wants to scream.

"Like you just want me to believe that you just forgot-" She grabs the offensive thing from the bed, the one that'd burst forth when it hit Max's shoulder, tearing it open to read it out loud, because why not drive it home, anyways, and- "...what the hell?" She unfolds it and smooths it out on the bed and blinks, furious when the tears from her eyes stain the page, immediately dropping wrists as she does. "What the-" The anger leaves her voice, replaced with something she hates even more than Max, right now-something small and weak and _confused_ instead. "Max?"

Max stiffens, hand immediately shooting up to her bicep as she leans over to look at the unfolded page on her old bed.

"What?" She repeats and they both look down at a never sent letter, Max's furious, rushed, almost erratic handwriting covering the whole page in a nearly desperate sentence, accompanied by the smallest smear of brown and red in the corner:

 **SAVE CHLOE.**

"Save-" Max whispers, halting halfway through, voice hitching, Chloe's chin tipping up to watch the light from the cracked Seattle window dance along her hair. It's that same lost, loving look Max always has in moments like this and Chloe gives herself a breath to stop hating to selfishly gather strength from it. "I never…"

"Did you rewind?" It's barely a whisper, dropping the paper to cup her cheeks, searching those damn blue eyes like they hold the secrets to the universe, because they do. "Fuck me, did you jump? Did you rewind? Did you send this and-"

"I don't know." Max repeats, hand so weakly curling around her wrist that Chloe wants to set the world on fire. Wants to shake her and kiss her and cry. "I never remembered why I never kept in touch with you, anytime I asked myself I just-" She looks like she's nearly in pain, like her head's about to split in two-Chloe can tell because she knows every twitch of Max's brow like Max isn't the only one with a stack of photographs in her bag-and Chloe's hands push up from cheeks to gently rake through dark hair. Max leans a little into the touch and murmurs a rasping sentence, "I just thought I was a terrible friend."

"Why did you do it?" Chloe asks her, desperate and hurt and a little broken-a little broken since the day Max left-and she hates letting her see it, even years older.

Especially years older.

"I don't know." Max repeats.

"I needed you." Her voice cracks.

"I know." And the way Max says it makes it worse, because she must have known.

"I _loved you_."

"I know." Max's forehead falls into the crook of her neck and Chloe shakily wraps both of her arms around her back, the letter falling down to the foot of the bed, forgotten twice (but not a third for years), "I don't remember." The brunette's voice quivers and cracks and Chloe wants to lock it in her chest, "I can't-"

She rewound. Max rewound and she doesn't remember a single second of it. Will there be a day when she does? When she snaps back and can answer the questions of the universe like some kind of omniscient time-travelling God that ripped Chloe's world in half?

Fuck.

"Shut up." Chloe's nose turns to press into Max's temple, eyes slamming shut, fingers curling so tight into Max's shoulder that they might hurt, but if her best friend notices, she doesn't say anything. "Just...just shut up for a minute, alright?" Her mind races through a million scenarios-a million seconds of ticking nails against the edge of her phone, waiting for Max to call; a million seconds of writing and re-writing the same letter over and over again, only to toss them in the trash; a million seconds of running her fingers along her father's camera and nearly smashing it against the wall every single time; a million-a _million-_ a **million** \- "You chose to rewind time and come back here for a reason, right?"

 _ **save chloe**_

Her voice rasps and Max looks up from her chest, eyes red and beautiful, and fingers raise up from a death vice to cup her cheeks and Chloe hates that Max loves her so much. She hates that Max has watched her die a thousand times. She hates that Max wrinkles her nose when she reads and looks at her, sometimes, like she might lose her. She hates that Max can never look at a clock without gazing two seconds too long-that she can never catch Chloe's wrist without feeling for a pulse-that sometimes Chloe goes to the bathroom and comes back and she catches Max looking so intently at the door that she's surprised it doesn't snap in half-that she looks at her like she's looking at her right _now_.

Like she'd do anything in the world to keep her.

Because it's beautiful-it makes her feel like she's worth more than Arcadia Bay; than all of the world-but it scares the ever-living fuck out of her, sometimes, too. Because Max went back to this very moment when she could've saved more than just her life, but didn't, and Chloe doesn't understand why. Max looks at her like _this_ but wrote two letters to her she never sent and Chloe doesn't-she doesn't-

 _Does she trust her?_

"Well maybe," Chloe closes her eyes-swallows-and brushes lips over Max's forehead. She can feel breath hitch against her neck and small shoulders tighten and familiar fingers curl in the fabric of her dusty jacket all before Max pulls back to look at her, "Maybe I should stop being so fucking angry with you, for once, and figure out that you…" She gulps. Actually gulps. Because she doesn't know what to do without being angry at the world...

But she can't be angry at the world and forget Max is in it.

"You can be angry at me." Max murmurs like it's a right of fucking passage and Chloe keeps herself from punching her shoulder out of habit.

"Shut up. No. No, I can't, because you've-shit, Max, after everything you've done-after everything you've shown me, after... _God_ -" Bodies and torn remnants and the way the sun hit the shattered windows of the diner-

It hits her, then.

She continues, throat thick: "Maybe it's about time I realize you must've had a...a huge reason. Some huge fucking, time-altering, life-saving, self-stupid-sacrificial reason, as much as it pisses me off, and...and trust you."

"What?" Max looks at her like she can't believe what she's saying and Chloe's not too far behind, because she's not too sure about it, either.

"I mean, it hurts. It really, really hurts, but if you came back here...if you came back here to...to save me, if you don't remember any of it and you...rewound-" A strong jaw trembles and she leans into Max's hand when fingers brush along her jaw-push into faded blonde strands that still have hints of purple and tug her closer. "-maybe we're finally here, together, because of it. And I need to learn to trust you."

Trust Max with more than just her life.

Adding, "I'm still pissed."

"You're always pissed." Max whispers but she looks so thankful that Chloe's heart breaks like some skinny little skater's two-piece board.

"But I love you, anyways." Fingers wrap around the wrist pushing through her hair, tugging down a delicate hand just enough to kiss her palm. It's a testament, maybe, to how much they've grown together, because five years ago Chloe would've stormed out and never looked back.

"Lucky me." Max's voice is probably meant to be sarcastic, but the way it breaks in a hint of fragile, tear-smothered laughter makes Chloe push Max the rest of the way onto the bed, ignoring the warmth in her chest when Max's knees tent at her hips-when familiar legs wrap around her waist-leaning down to press a lingering kiss to a raging heart. Max holds her close and wraps around her like a koala bear and this is the closest they've been since they've gotten here, really. The most she's felt _Max_ against her chest-in her arms-and she lets out a breath.

"Lucky you." Chloe agrees. "So...you totally wrote me two letters that you ripped to shreds and tossed behind your dresser. So what? You went back and saved my ass a thousand times a few years later, and fell _madly_ in love with me in the process so-"

"I did." There's no jokes or teasing and Chloe looks up from Max's heart to meet her eyes, swallowing dryly because _shit if Max isn't still crying_.

"Lucky me." Chloe lets Max tug her down, barely hearing her reply before their lips meet.

"Lucky you."

There's a long, long pause, the sunlight casting pastels on Max's shoulder as Chloe's nose brushes along her ear, "Max?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about Sparky."

Max looks older than she should be and Chloe wonders how many lives she's lived.

"No one should die alone like that."

Instead of asking about it, Chloe goes back to kissing her, instead.

 **M.P**

"You were here to visit Kate and you just kind of…" Chloe's explanation is cut off, faraway blue eyes widening a little in surprise as Max turns around in her arms.

"Chloe?" Max wonders, both of her hands coming up to curve almost reverently around cheeks. To trace lines of soft skin and the flutter of eyelashes and Chloe's hands quietly raise to curve around her wrists, lips barely parting as she does, something heavy and unchanging between them.

"Max, what are you-"

"I don't remember." She looks disoriented and sad and maybe it's something familiar, the way Chloe steps forward and, like all great things lost, Max doesn't understand why she whispers: "Neither one of us do."

"Max, I don't-" Chloe leans forward, thumb so gently-so gingerly-swiping underneath Max's nose, "Shit, I don't know what you're talking about. You're kind of going past _enigmatic_ right into _brain damage_ territory with the nose bleed babbling thing. Are you alright? Maybe you're going a little too super-human, maybe you should-"

Max turns back towards the door and everything feels a little like she's underwater. A little like everything- _everything_ -is stretched out across a-

 _chasm of white_

-chasm and she can't quite reach it. Like her mind is foggy and her tongue is heavy and her chest beats frantically and she can barely feel Chloe's fingers curve almost protectively around her shoulder.

"I'm fine." Max insists, "It's just...just a brain freeze or...something." She tries, hand pressing against her temple, because she feels like she should be saying something else. Doing something else. She feels like she's miles away and the world-

"Whatever you say, Max-o." Chloe doesn't sound too convinced. A sigh. "Why don't you go inside, and I'll just...chill out here for a bit, huh?" Chloe gently offers in her ear and Max squeezes her hand and wonders why something feels so odd about it. Wonders why she feels like there should be something about Chloe's hand.

Something different about her.

"Entropy." Chloe whispers, but when Max turns around to face her she's just sitting in the chair, looking down at her shoes, lips closed.

"What?"

"What?" Chloe looks up, chin dipping.

"Did you say-" A pause, because Chloe's still just looking at her like she's got two hipster heads. "Great," Max mumbles, hand still rubbing at her temple, "Guess I can add going crazy onto my super-hero resume."

 **C.P.**

They wind up staying a few more days after the "letter incident", regardless of the fact that all of the boxes are packed, and Chloe's reminded what it's like to not be the central drama of someone dying in Max's life.

She watches the way Max's fingers curl around her dad's shoulder like she's older than him-like her knees are built of steel and her lungs are full of turpentine-and how she sometimes pushes her breakfast plate towards her father and doesn't eat, herself, but wants him to eat double (and gives Chloe a look when she makes her another plate, anyways).

She watches the way Max tucks her chin towards the ground and murmurs, " _Shit, mom_ ," Like she's human only when no one's looking.

She watches the way Max helps her mother up without a single question like her muscles are built from carrying people on her back-of lifting the world up on a singular shoulder-chiseled from camaraderie and thoughtless necessity. She watches the way feet tuck and naturally accommodate the weight like Max knows it might twist her ankle or kip her knee, meticulously putting one foot in front of the other like it's a motion her body's done a thousand times. Chloe uncannily watches Max like how she's watched soldiers look in the movies, sometimes-she watches blue never waver and lips never part-and it's just so messed up to see such solid lines on Max's face because to Chloe, Max's face has always been composed of soft velvet and the gentle cotton lift of pillow cases. Max has always been made of determined eyes but gentle curves of lips and soft fingers and she hates that she sees it, now-sees the way the world can build callouses on more than just fingers.

Chloe watches Max shift out of bed at night like she thinks if she stays here with Chloe too long her body will sink six feet under into the sheets and she slips up to the door, watching Max sit next to her father at the small breakfast nook, in the corner. It's become kind of a routine this month, she's noticed. Max's small body slumps a little compared to his, the soft glow of the over-head skylight highlighting stars against the dark circles under both of their eyes, but this time seems like a first for the Caulfield's: they talk. Normally they just do the quiet sitting thing and Chloe watches and waits until Max ambles back to the bed and doesn't even bother pretending to be asleep while Max doesn't bother pretending not to have slipped out.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there much when you were young." Mr. C- _Ryan_ -is holding onto a cup of coffee like a lifeline.

"Dad, we really don't have to do the Hallmark talk. You were there loads." Max scoots the stool closer to the nook and large fingers brush through longer hair. "You okay? Want me to get you-"

"Hey, Max, I'm okay. Your old man's alright. You've taken care of me plenty." He holds her a little in place, looking at Max in a way that reminds Chloe of how her own father used to look at her, sometimes-like she was growing up too fast and he'd lose her-and the blonde has to choke down the raw emotion in her chest, looking away for a moment. "Who's taking care of you?"

There's a long moment before Max murmurs, "Chloe." And Chloe looks back up, at that. Ryan chuckles and drops his hand.

"You two have grown even more inseparable. Your mom and I didn't really think that was possible, when you were young. Guess with some people it's just like no time's passed." His hand falls from her hair and Max shakes her head. It sounds like perfect Max-timing-when the brunette would normally make some wise joke or a quip or...something-but those dark circles just look darker and Chloe's never wanted to go out there to wrap arms around her so much, before. To just tug her back and...hold her.

She'd tuck those fucking hipster lights up in Max's room if she thought it'd do the trick of getting her to stop looking like _that_.

"Yeah." But it's there, this wisp of a smile. "It took a long time, but...we're past where we were. We're better."

"I know you never wanted to leave Arcadia Bay. I was always glad we stayed around, when you were a kid. And then my job-"

"Dad," Max protests, again, hand raising up to curl around his shoulder, again. "We've had plenty of time. You were always there, with mom and I. Don't...do this. The beat yourself up thing. Trust me," A dry swallow, "It's not gonna help. You've just...you have to focus on going forward. You've gotta be strong for mom, you know? That's all you can do. Be strong."

 _I'll always have your back._

 _-Be strong._

 _Be strong. -_

"When did you get so old?" Ryan wonders and Max shrugs a shoulder, Chloe's jacket falling down it. There's a long pause and he hesitates before leaning forward and kissing her brow. "We both love you. I know your mom said a few things to you the other day about Chloe and-"

Chloe's ears perk up at that. Max groans.

"Can we seriously _not_?"

Ryan smiles, "And I just want to tell you we're sorry-we both are-about the-"

"Dad." Max sighs but looks up at him a little thankful and quiet, like there's a small shift in those eyes.

"You do, right? She told me you said you-"

"Yeah, Dad." And Max looks up towards the bedroom, then, like she knows Chloe's watching her and she probably _does_ , fucking spider-Max. "I love her." A long pause, "I just...I wish I could help." But they're not talking about Chloe, anymore, and Max is still looking at her-right at her-and Chloe's fingers curl around the door frame to keep herself from barging out there.

"Max, Sweetie, what are you gonna do? Turn back time? You're doing everything you can and, trust me, we appreciate it, Super Girl."

For a second, just for a _split_ second, Max looks so wounded that Chloe decides they're leaving to-fucking-morrow and pulls away from the door, then, to let them have their space. It's a good hour before Max pushes open the bedroom door, hits her shin on her dresser like she always does (kicks it for good measure, after) and collapses onto the bed next to her like she never left it.

And Chloe watches her.

Chloe watches Max build herself a wall of glass around her that's so tight, she shatters with it when Chloe chases spider-vein cracks down her spine in loving lines. Because she watches Max during the day-the Max that the world built-but when Max sits down on an old rickety Seattle bed at night and Chloe gently holds her, molding the brunette against her chest like she can feel _more_ underneath the immovable walls, it's just them.

It's just them. And she's not watching her, anymore.

"It's just me." Chloe whispers against the shell of Max's ear, arm curling tighter around a waist, lips brushing over a temple. "I saw the talk with your old man, which, y'know, we both know I did. You don't have to do all this strong shit with me."

For the first time, Chloe wonders if Max has had to, before. If there's worlds where Max tucked her hair behind her ear and lifted her up on her shoulder and kept the world in her chest so that Chloe wouldn't break underneath the weight of it. If Chloe's the reason Max knows how to carry someone's body across a room or if Chloe's the reason Max knows how to keep her face so strong. So even. So tight.

This is the part where Chloe wants to be the reason Max knows how to _not_ do any of that, for once.

"Max." She whispers, again, kissing a temple, and there it is.

Max's response is this resounding dry sob welling up in a young throat like a dying fucking cat and Chloe holds her tighter, breath quaking in her chest as Max turns into her, fingers trembling as the brunette desperately curls fingers in her shoulders. But she doesn't cry. Max doesn't cry. There's another restless, broken, _dry_ sob like it's that dry heaving retch when you've drank too much and there's nothing left in your stomach, but there's no water. No tears.

Chloe holds her like there is.

It's the first and only time the brunette admits the war going on in her chest.

 _I kill everyone I love._ Max whispers into her neck, and Chloe understand why she keeps sneaking out at night, because she's probably scared she won't be able to put herself together, again. She understand why Max looked so surprised that Chloe said she'd trust her, instead.

She understands why Max keeps her mother's scarf and Chloe's blanket and Kate's cross in her pocket.

"This isn't your fault." Chloe tells her over and over and over again, because it isn't-it couldn't be-but she knows Max doesn't believe her, so eventually the mantra turns into something else.

"You saved me." Chloe tells her, instead. "You saved me."

Max's fingers slacken in her shoulders after she tells her this enough and for the first time in weeks, the brunette actually falls asleep.

"You saved me." Chloe repeats, again, Max sagging against her chest, awake blue eyes flicking towards the dresser and two letters, no longer there, that had been buried behind it. Reminding them both:

"You saved me."

 **M.P.**

She doesn't remember walking through the door, but something in her loses her breath at the sight of Kate, whose smile is soft from the chair and whose eyes are so bright and quiet that Max wonders how she ever forgot them.

Did she forget them?

Maybe she just doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about Kate's _eyes_ like a creep.

"Oh, Max!" Kate's bright and warm and when she tugs her close Max wishes she never let go of Chloe's hand because suddenly she feels like she can't stand up. "Max, I'm so glad you-" Max's hands slowly come up to cup her shoulders, nose falling to her neck. She doesn't know why she suddenly wants to cry-why tears curl up her throat like the knotted noose of a rope-but she keeps talking, instead.

"I'm so glad you never jumped." Is all she says and Kate sounds a little taken aback but when she pulls away she doesn't question it. She doesn't question a single thing. She just takes Max's hand and guides her over to the table and smiles.

"Me too."

 **C.P.**

Eventually, like everything, they learn how to fucking deal with it.

The apartment is a little bigger than a shoebox, this time, and a little more rat free (hopefully; time will tell) but it's weird how they grow accustomed to it, once they leave Seattle and settle here. How quickly the pictures line the walls even if the boxes aren't unpacked. How they have actual plates in the cabinets-a few, anyways, neither one of them exactly spend hours living it up in front of _HGTV_ -but their bed is still on the floor. How the smell of the city hangs in the air and the heater is always busted in the winter and the air conditioner is still always busted in the summer. How Max still puts those small little twinkling white lights up on the wall (and Chloe hangs a sign underneath it that says 'pull in case of rats') and their only real blanket is the one from her truck and it feels like the home they've never left.

Max's shoulders move from constantly-hunched to barely rolled, and Chloe notices she wears a stolen scarf more often than not, but eventually Max is taking pictures, again, and cracking jokes, again, and dancing to bad music, again, and it seems like a long-drawn out kind of disease doesn't mean the end of the world.

Or a tornado.

And one day, both of them lounging on their bed while Chloe smokes a cigarette and flips through the worn pages of a used textbook, the world starts making a bit more sense, too. She's reading through an old Eddington volume when she pauses, realization striking, cigarette nearly limply falling from her mouth onto tangled sheets.

"Max." Chloe's head pops up from the bed like a golden retriever and Max looks at her like it's a strangely nostalgic sight, fingers reaching up to gently straighten out the strands. "I've got it. I've-holy shit, how did I not-"

"What?" Her voice is a little amused, tea jostling a little as she sets it down only for Chloe to hop up, bed shaking as the blonde rushes over to the widest wall they have in the apartment. The one not covered in pictures, yet, planning to claim it like goddamn Science-Napoleon.

"I'm such a-I'm a fucking genius!" Chloe exclaims, immediately pushing things away from the wall-taking off the few knick-knack that aren't pictures-to have a wide open canvas.

"Well, yeah," Max agrees, coming up behind her, arms moving to wrap around her waist but hopping back to avoid getting hit with a flying monochrome decoration, instead- "Woah."

"Sorry."

Continuing like she hasn't missed a beat: "-But is there a reason you're, you know, tearing apart our apartment, Genius?" Chloe nearly misses half of it from running across the apartment.

"Duh, because I've solved the universe, life, and everything." Chloe immediately responds from the small utility closet where they stored Max's paint for a side project (probably shouldn't have put it next to the Water Heater, but whatever), running over to see dark eyebrows pushed up into a hairline. "It's a line!"

"O...kay." Max's arms are crossed, warily flicking up from the paint to Chloe's face. Like she's debating whether she even wants to ask.

"Time is a line." Chloe clarifies.

Max just stares at her.

"Okay, whatever, you don't need to understand. I'm just a fucking genius and I need your help-" She hefts up the paint, Max stumbling forward to catching the near-brick brush that nearly falls off the top of it.

"You want to paint a line across our apartment, don't you?" Max dead-pans and Chloe opens her mouth to a hand cutting her off, familiar fingers cupping over her mouth, "No, Chloe, I didn't rewind. I'm just dating a weirdo."

"A totally hot weirdo." Chloe's muffled protest comes from behind the hand, shaking it away with a vigorous shake of the head so that she can properly kiss her mouth.

"A totally hot weirdo." It's mumbled against her mouth.

"Genius."

"A totally hot weirdo genius." Max amends and doesn't protest-doesn't even ask any questions-just helps her paint a large red line across their apartment that eventually becomes full of sticky notes and questions and pictures of their lives. It takes them an hour to paint it, this angry red, precise smear across their new home, because it takes three coats of paint to soak into the thirsty wall, and Chloe wonders if Max's fingers itch to hang the hipster lights over it and somehow refrains.

"Wowsers." Max notes, forearm wiping sweat from her brow, long bangs sticking a little to her forehead and Chloe wants to lean forward and kiss the red from the tip of her nose, "That's one huge timeline we've got here."

"Did you just make a pun, Caulfield?" Chloe smirks. A shrug is her response.

"The company I keep."

They sit down on the floor in front of it.

"Okay Price, so time's a fucking line, whatever that means." Chloe murmurs, both of their hands stained with red, and Max just reaches across the distance to tangle fingers, their hands clasped in front of a blank canvas of...time.

Time, the line. And her girlfriend who doesn't understand it, but can travel through it.

"You'll figure it out." Lips brush against a temple, "As long as there's no math involved, let me know if you-ack!" It's a squeal of a noise, endearing and warm and _loud_ as Chloe tackles her onto the bed, staining her stomach and hips with red and paint while Max laughs into her neck, drawing a heart on her breast that takes a week to wash out with water but never quite does.

"Hell yeah I will." Chloe smirks in response.

 **M. P.**

They talk. They talk about a lot of things. They talk about nothing. It's the longest Max feels like her head's been on her shoulders and not twisted off like Ash from Evil Dead came at her with a chainsaw.

Because, for once, Max lets herself believe she has time. There's nothing she wants to change here-not a single thing-and the brunette traces the lines of drawings like she's a blind lady reading the bible. She smiles-laughs-and Kate asks her to take photos for a book and it's nearly thirty minutes before Max feels herself hunch over, trying to hold in tears that she doesn't understand (doesn't know where they came from or why) and Kate notices.

"Max?" She leans off of the chair and gently sets her hands on her knees and Max forces the tears back.

"Nothing. It's nothing. I don't...I don't even know why I'm-"

Kate, like Kate, again doesn't ask-doesn't push-and she never asks why Max leans down and takes a picture of them, either, smiling.

"I just...I just always want to remember this."

She doesn't, but part of her does, and one day this photo winds up in the back of a book, even though she never remembers taking it.

 **C.P.**

Max is going through photos when Chloe collapses on the rickety bed next to her and exhaustedly-lazily-leans forward to brush lips over a bare shoulder six months later (because time flies when you're working like a dog). Max doesn't respond, immediately, but when she looks up it looks like she has to blink a few times to focus and doesn't smile until Chloe cups her cheek.

It's that sluggish look, like Max's mind is catching up, but when it does, a free hand is curling in Chloe's shirt and tugging her closer.

"How was work?"

Chloe shrugs a shoulder, tugging the shirt over her head before tossing it across the room into their joined, haphazard pile, tucked safely underneath a large red line, Max's arm immediately wrapping around a half-bare waist. "You alright?"

A slightly distracted nod is the answer before Max looks back down at the pictures (she's always looking through pictures; always). She's been doing some commissioned piece for...something (Chloe listens when she talks, she swears; okay, she always listens but sometimes she doesn't pick up on the _words_ ) and she blinks at it. New York homeless, it looks like, but Max's mind is obviously not really focusing on them.

"Chlo?" It's a quiet, serious tone that makes her slide closer on the bed.

"Lay it on me, Maximillian." Another kiss to a shoulder, swiping away now-long hair to comfort lips up to a neck, to rest breath against a pulse, and Max is quiet for a long moment, leaning back into her, before her quiet voice rumbles through the apartment.

"If I asked you to stop smoking…" Max looks back up, "Would you do it?"

Chloe's not sure why she's thrown by the question. Max's never judged her for much of anything-hell, she still doesn't judge her for actual _anything_ -and Chloe's immediate retort is to tell her to shove it but there's something serious in blue eyes that makes her audibly groan.

"Shit, you're serious." Her chin falls back down to a bare shoulder, "You didn't rewind back here from a future from where I, like...had one of those fake jaws, or, like...sound like Stephen Hawking, right?"

"Chloe, I _am_ serious. Come on."

"So am I. How the hell are we gonna get it on if I have a fake jaw?"

"Look, I'm not...okay, this is totally gonna sound like one of those weird girl 'I'm saying one thing and meaning another thing' conversations, but it's not. I'm not asking you. You know I'd never ask you something like that." Max hesitates and struggles with being selfish, for a minute, because she's right. She'd never ask something like that. Chloe knows that. They both do.

"So why are you-"

"I know it's not the same thing. But I don't want to spend the...shit. This is turning into the conversation I didn't want it to, Chlo. It was just-I shouldn't have-Forget it. Forget it, this is stupid. This is so beyond-"

Chloe tucks up her chin, meeting her eyes, "Come on, don't wuss out on me, now."

"It's-It makes me a horrible human being." Max argues.

"Not you, goodie Max shoes." Chloe kisses her nose and Max curls fingers in her hair.

It's a long, long time before Max says it, at all.

"I don't want to spend the last years of our lives scared I'm gonna lose you like I'm watching my dad lose my mom. Not when I..."

It's a quiet confession she never finishes because Max wipes a hasty hand underneath her eyes and Chloe pulls back, stunned.

"I...God, I'm sorry. Forget it. Please, just forget it. I don't want to-"

Max doesn't ask for much-all Max has ever asked Chloe for has been _her,_ really-and it's one of the toughest fucking things she ever does (she sneaks a few here or there and Max never mentions it, again) but Chloe tosses her cigarettes in the trash two seconds later and kisses all of Max's apologies away on their bed until she stops apologizing for asking, at all.

 **M.P.**

It's funny, with time. She can never tell if it's unraveling itself like string or patching itself together like the frayed knit of a yarn spool.

"Max." Eyes close as she feels the water sift around her like sand through an hourglass and when Max's eyelashes flutter, she looks across the pool to see her best friend looking at her, upside down, floating in streaks of blue.

"Yeah?"

Chloe crosses the distance between them, ripples cascading like falling sheets, rolling over her thighs and her clenching stomach and the red under her nose. Before long, Chloe is above her, hair stuck to her face and eyes serious and quiet. Different. Older.

Older…

 _Different._

"Do you know where we are?"

It's a blunt, serious question, and Max tugs her closer, not sure if this is a dream or reality or-

 _A moment._

She doesn't remember everything. Just fragments. Like an unspun VHS that's trying to wrap spools of broken black tape, tangling as it tries to complete itself, again.

"No." She whispers, eyelashes fluttering underneath the drops of water falling from Chloe's chin, splattering against her cheek like warm paint. She tries-tries-Nothing.

"Plan B." Chloe murmurs, wet hand coming up to brush over her lips and Max breathes warm life against them. A finger dips down to skim along the circle around a neck and she wonders why her best friend sounds like she's so close to crying. "I think we're almost there. Somewhere, we're there, already, right? That's how it works. I think I'm almost there, and eventually you'll...I don't know how long we-"

 _ **I'm so tired-**_

The water sloshes and Max opens her eyes, feeling faintly like she's lost something, feeling the water roll tides of faint rumbles against her hips.

 _Chloe._

"Max?" Chloe asks, looking at her curiously across the pool, wading towards her. "You alright? I wasn't serious about the whole otter rivalry thing, chill."

Max doesn't answer her-she just looks at her and wonders why she knows what she tastes like.


	5. Chapter 5

**Note:** This chapter is very Mature and **NSFW** tbh. Like I'm not even sorry. It's also extraordinarily long (it's the longest chapter) because I'm not sure if I'll be able to post quite on time, next week.

 **Arrow of Time.**

" _Must not this gateway too have been there before? And are not all things knotted together so firmly that this moment draws after it_ _ **all**_ _that is to come? Therefore – itself too? For whatever_ _ **can**_ _walk – in this long lane out there too, it must walk once more."_

Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

 **C. P**

The biggest fucking surprise to the universe isn't Max Caulfield tossing it the proverbial finger and letting a tornado ravage its shores. It's got to be Chloe Price graduating with honors and going to _graduate school_ on a _scholarship_.

"Look, I know I keep telling you the more I read that the whole...alternate realities theory we had when we were kids was total and complete shit-"

"Nerd!" Max calls from the bathroom, using the only toothbrush they have (it's Max's and it's a battle she seemingly gave up years ago).

"-but this is some messed up twilight zone fuckery." Chloe passes up the letter that just came in.

"Help, my girlfriend's been abducted by intelligent aliens." Max spits before rinsing again because she was the one that handed her the mail, in the first place, and the letter from the college was sitting on top.

"Me? Bet you could find a flying saucer up uranus." It's the most mature quip to ever leave her lips and Max hops over the edge of their couch-they invested in an actual fucking _couch,_ it makes the decor and everything-to snatch up the letter and perch next to her as she reads, toothbrush hanging out of her mouth.

"'Dat doe'nt eben bake sens-" And then she pauses. "Ch'oe!" Max finally reads the whole thing and does the squealing bit where she tackles her into the couch and Chloe discovers the reverse side of this, years later-of Max sloppily kissing toothpaste birthmarks up her body like butterflies.

Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, Max smiles and laughs and beams.

 _I'm so proud of you._

 **M….**

"Don't worry, half's stacked high with anchovies."

Chloe stills and Max doesn't notice, eyes riveted on the board leaning against her wall. She thinks she might've been here, before. She thinks maybe she sang _Blues Clues_ once at the large kind-of sorted pages until Chloe threw a book about science that she doesn't know anything about towards her head and told her to at least go get a pizza. So Max thinks she did. Max thinks she got pizza and that she's been here, since, and it takes her a second to turn around and finally catch the look on slightly-stunned features before sitting back down on the bed, taking a break. She'll rewind and catch up, after.

"How'd you know I like them?" Chloe bluntly asks. "We never got anchovies when we were kids." This is postulated around a mouthful of pizza and Max's brow knits.

"I don't know." Max mumbles. "You just do, right?"

"Well...yeah, but I-oh, did you rewind and-"

"I don't know." Max shrugs a shoulder because she doesn't, anymore. She doesn't know. Max doesn't know anything, anymore. Her hand reaches up to her neck and stills, like she's scared what she'll find there. Or won't. Chloe turns around with her own shrug and looks back at the screen and must never hear Max's quiet mumble, hand falling from her neck before it can feel anything, at all.

Sunsets, a thousand of them, faint like fog in the back of her mind. The sight of blonde hair dancing along open pages like nails dancing up a back, eyes quiet and calm and smiling.

The smell of chlorine and cigarettes.

Max doesn't know anything, anymore, hand falling to hang uselessly by her hip, searching Chloe's shoulders like it's a map to a treasure she's lost.

"You like Nietchze, too."

 **C.P.**

Chloe pins Max's hand to the bed, sometimes, but she never pins both because Max'll still-she'll tense and quiver and look away like there's something _familiar_ there that makes Chloe sick.

Chloe dips Max's chin up, sometimes, but she never grabs her by the back of the neck because Max'll catch her breath like glass smashing against the wall.

Chloe kisses Max's neck, sometimes, but never the right side, only the left, because if breath skirts along the left side of her neck Max's fingers will curl so tightly that she looks like an animal caged.

Chloe never asks why sometimes Max runs thumbs in a circle on her forehead or why she stares a little too long at the snaking chord of the lamp in their bedroom, trailing like a lazy lizard across their whole floor to the outlet, sometimes. Chloe never asks why Max jumps when dogs bark when she fucking _loves_ dogs, sometimes, hand immediately snapping out to curl around Chloe's bicep and bring her _closer_. To bring her _behind_ her.

Chloe never asks why Max keeps zoning out more and more. She never asks why Max's eyes catch on pictures and her eyes glaze over and it looks like Chloe's _losing_ her. This one she doesn't ask because she _is_ scared of losing her.

She's knows she is. Some part of her knows she is, no matter how much she tells herself she's insane.

So she just holds her, instead.

Chloe never asks, Chloe just does and doesn't, and it works out well for them.

Because she watches Max like Max watches her and pushes the photographer out into the world so she'll _live_ in it and that works pretty well for them, too.

"Chloe?" They're both sitting in the swings in the nearby park, full of dirt and trash and grime like the whole city is, pinkies twined as they sway across the gap like they aren't in their twenties and both taking a lunch from work to be here. She hums in acknowledgement. "I want to see the world with you."

It's such a simple sentence and Chloe blinks at it, turning to face her on the rickety swing, chains protesting at her movement. Max looks so...calm. It reminds Chloe of that day years ago, watching Max soak in the sun like a plant, the simplest smile on her lips while the hills of the world rolled on in front of them and they were sitting there, together.

It's Beautiful with a capital B and Chloe just lets Max keep talking.

"Go on adventures." Max repeats. "Like...when we were kids. I know we've seen the states, but...I want to see the world." Max turns from the sun to smile at her and Chloe can't help but smile.

She doesn't ask why-just does and doesn't-and Chloe gently pulls Max's hand further into her lap. The brunette gets off her swing to slide up behind her, both arms wrapping lazily around Chloe's shoulders, hands tangling inbetween two chain link supports.

They'll see some of it, a year from now. They'll see more than they've ever seen. They'll make plans for far away lands they'll never finish and draw maps along their ceiling with pencil fingers and light eyes and get sick in boats and spend the whole trip between groaning in the bed and watching the sun set underneath rocking waves. Chloe isn't Max-she can't see the future and can't change the past-but she knows there's a lot they still have to do and she thinks they have all the time in the world to do it.

"No one I'd rather set sail with, Captain."

 **M.P.**

There's a ring around her neck as Max stares out at the setting sun, not hearing Chloe come up behind her. Should she?

"Max."

She doesn't remember. Neither of them do. It doesn't feel...right.

It's not the right time, and isn't that ironic? Her fingers curl tighter around the ring.

"Tell me...everything."

She can't. Max doesn't know everything, yet.

 _I'll find you._

She forgets.

 **C.P**

It's never dark in New York City, that was one of the things they both had to get used to when they moved here. The fact that it really is the city that never sleeps when they were both used to stars dancing above them in the middle of nowhere, of valleys where they could park the truck and just curl into each other, but in New York there's nowhere to park and no matter where they are, they're not laying in a sea of stars, they're laying in the middle of a sea of people.

But they can disappear here and Chloe likes that. She likes that no one knows where Arcadia Bay is, let alone has ever seen a tornado. She likes that people don't move slowly, here-that they move too fast to keep up-and no one pays mind to two broke girls huddled together in a blanket 24/7. Their neighbors have never asked anything about them and never will and neither Max or her try to socialize.

She likes it. She likes all of it and she's liked all of it for a good half a decade, now.

And there's moments like _this_ that make New York worth it. That make everything worth it. Because moments like this, Chloe forgets they're in New York at all-that they've been in New York for years, now-and she thinks they don't need to be pirates in a sea of broken buildings to go on adventures because Max can take her anywhere she fucking wants to.

Chloe's sprawled half-naked on their bed on the floor (so what if they moved to a bigger place, old habits die hard), one leg lazily hanging off of the bed and arm thrown over her eyes when she hears the faintest shutter from across the room. Her lips twitch from underneath a forearm.

"Didn't know you were into the voyeur thing, Hef." Chloe expects a quip to get thrown her way in return, but instead she hears another click. The arm is moved just enough so that she can squint across the apartment. Sure enough, there's Max, clad in one of Chloe's band-tanks and no pants because the air conditioner _never fucking works,_ kneeling down on the floor across the small apartment. The light from the windows highlights the tail-end of a ponytail, a pale white glow radiating off of warm skin, and Chloe can barely see a familiar smile beneath the huge thing, quiet and simple. She's close to grabbing the pillow and tossing it at her girlfriend just to get a reaction-just to get her to come closer-when Max shakes her head.

"Wait, don't move."

Blinking, Chloe's arm falls back down next to her side, because it's rare that Max gets in _this_ kind of photography zone with her, and she shifts a little, suddenly a little uncomfortable. Because it's not like she cares about being naked-or has an ounce of shame about it, like Max tells her, often-but there's something about the _look_ Max gets in her eyes, sometimes, that brings her pause. This look like she sees right through her, like she sees _all_ of her, and it doesn't matter how much Chloe trusts her, it makes her feel vulnerable because it doesn't matter how long they've been together, time doesn't heal _all_ wounds.

And she hates being vulnerable.

Like now, when Max leans higher up on her knees to take a better shot, the subway going by causing flickers of christmas lights to dance along her sweaty skin. "Come on, Chlo." A familiar, soft voice gently goads and the thing about someone seeing right through her is that Max can always tell when she's tense, too. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Max crosses the distance, then, crawling over the edge of the bed to rest over her, not touching, eyes soft. "You know you're my favorite model."

"Damn straight I am." Chloe's lips twitch. They twitch a little more when Max's lips brush over her nose.

"Can I take them?" She asks-she always asks when it comes to anything that makes Chloe tense-and hot hands move from underneath a sheet to hook underneath bare thighs, hiking Max up to straddle her lap.

"You could always just take me, instead." The twitch turns into a smirk that Max, above her, readily returns, camera raising inbetween them to take a snapshot.

"There's more than one way to make love to you, Chloe." Max says and it makes the sudden-model's mouth dry-it makes the hot air in the room even hotter-and Chloe lets camera-worn, meticulous fingers guide the sheet slowly (slowly, slowly, slowly) down her skin and even with the air so muggy, a shiver trails down her spine. "Let me?"

Chloe does and Max knows how to play her like a fiddle. Max knows how to make her ache and turn and gasp in a way that's cruel and unusual torture, documented in quiet camera flickers of a lens.

Max knows how to make her arch off the bed as nails run up her abdomen-how to make her groan as muscles flex, a tongue dipping in her navel accompanied by a faint click as sheets stick to her back.

Max knows how to make her breath catch as teeth skim along the inside of her calf-her thigh-her _inner_ thigh-with lips and tongue and teeth. Because Max bites down on the inside of her pulse in a way that makes her _ache_ , blonde brows barely knitting and lips parting, a click surrounding the shuttering breath that expels out of her like a balloon.

Max knows how to paint her with her tongue, the light of the city glinting off of sweat and saliva like a tattoo.

Max knows how to take her without taking her, and she takes pictures of fucking all of it.

She doesn't pose her. Max never poses anything, especially Chloe, she just irrevocably changes her until she's something more and then frames it like this is how Max has always seen her. Like Max has seen Chloe like a mural of groaning arches and beautiful, breathless wants, and she wants Chloe to see this version of herself, too.

Max makes a collage out of the map of Chloe's rising and falling valleys-makes her feel like she writes soliloquies in the click of a shutter as Max worships her with a lens-and it's everything. Everywhere. Her feet. The dip of her calf. The way her ass rises off of the bed. Max's breath dances shivers down her spine, heat so _cold_ off of sweat as teeth bite into the clenching muscles of her ass, taking a picture when the blonde rocks against the bed like a broken merry go round. Max's tongue swirls over the hard nub of her nipple, waiting until it's an immovable mountain before she takes another picture. And another. And another. The curve of Chloe's neck before she marks it-bites and sucks until Chloe is _moaning_ -and when she tries to dig nails in her hips, Max doesn't move, just takes a picture of that. Another and another and another.

Max's tongue skims along her lip until it's wet-another-kisses it until it's bruised-another-bites it until there's the faintest hint of red at the edge-another-and only drops the camera, for a moment, to kiss her deeper. To kiss her until both of them are pressed against the bed with Max's clothes and metal camera between them, breath breaking against Chloe's lips when Max barely pulls away.

"I could take a thousand pictures of you and never have enough."

The way Max says it makes her breath rattle in her chest because she loves her so much she can't _breathe._

"You're fucking killing me, Max." Chloe croaks underneath her as Max runs her fingers up between her legs until it's inevitable that they're going to have to throw out the sheets. Desperate hands curl in a sea of bunched white and they're laying in hundreds of fucking dollars of polaroids, right now, and Max isn't stopping. Max, whose eyes she can barely see through the dim light of the apartment, who looks so loving and wanting and _enraptured_ by her that she can't breathe anymore, isn't stopping. "If you don't get over the picture shit and do me, I'm just going to do it myself."

Like it matters. Max would just take a picture of it.

But the warning seems to fall on deaf ears, anyways, as Max lifts the fingers from inbetween Chloe's legs up to her mouth and-

And fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, because she can't watch Max's tongue do _that_ and just-

The noise that leaves Chloe's lips is practically carnal and her hands roughly curl around hips so that she can flip them over, one hand gently pressing the other girl's wrist to the bed so she'll stop with the damn camera, already. It's easy to smother any protest she'll get with her mouth, hand dipping beneath the hem of slim, soaked underwear to thrust fingers deep inside, burying herself up to knuckles (and tongue and teeth) before she curls until Max's toes are curling, too. Until Max's legs spread like angel wings on the bed and her fingers tangle in sweat-stained hair and Chloe can taste herself on a tongue.

Because she needs her. She needs every ounce of her.

The air is too hot and their skin is too slick and the sheets want to cling to them like a second skin while Chloe reminds Max that there's definitely more than one way to make love, and this way is by fucking her brains out. Her mouth has dropped down to a breast, sucking on a nipple through thin, transparent fabric and Chloe misses the sound of a startled shutter, Max's other hand so desperately clinging to the camera, snapping it in her surprise. It clatters from the small distance of the bed to the floor, forgotten, as nails drag down curving shoulder blades before dropping down between them, desperate to feel Chloe, too.

"Shit, Max." It's a breath against an open mouth and Max kisses her before she can say anything else. Chloe doesn't know how many times they come apart and come together, again, but she'll never forget the sight of a barely-illuminated, arching Max rocking against her on a bed of photos, wrapping around her like she's salvation.

The hand pressing Max's wrist to the bed smooths up until their fingers are clasped and Chloe doesn't let go. She doesn't let go and she knows Max would never ask her to.

An hour later they're both still panting and molded together like two wet noodles, laughing breathlessly into each other's necks when Chloe finally points out the camera now on its back on the warm wood of their apartment, leaning up to move to grab it, halting when Max tugs her back down. "Leave it. It's fine." She lazily steals a kiss and Chloe lets her, maybe more than a little glad that she wins out over the camera. "That was…"

"Totally fucking awesome?" Chloe supplies and rolls onto her back as Max stretches herself above her like a cat, bed-head supreme.

"Definitely that." That lazy smirk is something that only happens on days like this and Chloe loves New York. Loves their small apartments where they can hide away and Max can paint murals of her into their bed. "I love you, Chloe." Max finishes stretching in favor of collapsing on top of her, thoughtlessly reaching over to grab that ratty old blanket. Max doesn't toss it over them, but does pull it closer and Chloe watches her-she always watches her-fingers slowly sliding out from inside of her to soothe at tense stomach muscles, both of them humming in contentment.

It must be the lazy day thing that has her tongue so loose. Or Max's pretty damn thorough job. Because when a finger barely dips along her lower lip, she murmurs: "You make me feel loved." Loved. Beautiful. She closes her eyes and a hand cups her jaw as a nose rests against her neck, their heartbeats falling in sync.

"I do. Love you." Max quietly repeats, bodies sinking in the hot apartment, not separating despite the temperature. "I'll spend the rest of my life showing you."

Max only says the really romantic shit when it's just them together, like this, and Chloe loves it. Loves her.

"Promise?" Their fingers once more tangle a little above their shoulders. Max's toes thoughtlessly trace patterns up and down her calf and Chloe breathlessly raises up a hand to kiss each finger-to brush lips over each knuckle-sucking one finger into her mouth, knowing fingers can trace her smile when she releases it with a small pop.

"Always."

The next morning, Chloe makes them breakfast and Max is arranging all of the photos she took on the wall (it's not like they ever have any company and while it's a little weird to have her naked bod displayed and _splayed_ all over the apartment, the brunette does have a knack for collages).

"Shit, I look good." It's noted with a passed stack of pancakes, Max tugging Chloe back down onto the bed with her, stealing a bite of her bacon. The blonde doesn't complain, taking a long sip of the other girl's coffee before passing it back up. "We could charge a cover fee." Eyebrows wag and Max chuckles and tugs her the rest of the way down to kiss her.

"Let's hit rock bottom before we go all small town girls in the big city, alright?"

"Hey, this is art."

"Yeah," Max agrees, but she's not looking at the wall. She's looking at Chloe. She's looking Chloe like she sees her-like she sees all of her-but this time it doesn't make Chloe feel all that uncomfortable. "You are. Besides, this one?" She looks up towards the mural that's slowly being created from snapshots of their life. Hundreds of pictures of both of them-laughing and serious and moaning and together-and in between all of them is a picture that Max took entirely unaware the night before, both of them tangled, her head barely tipped back as they both meet.

"This one's just for us."

 **M.P.**

"Max?" Kate asks when Max pushes open the door, face curious and excited to see a friend she doesn't know she's seen a thousand times over. Shoulders slump, hand splayed out on the door as she feels someone familiar walk behind her, a nose brushing along her temple, a shiver racing up her spine, and this-

This is closer.

This is close.

She can feel it.

" _Max_." Another voice breathes in her ear and Max closes her eyes, leaning back into warm arms and the smell of cigarette smoke. A ghost shouldn't be so tall, because Max knows-she _knows_ -that this isn't how this goes. Because Chloe should be outside the door, not against her, and for a moment Max can feel _both_. She can feel the world shifting around her to where it's supposed to be. She can feel time move and stay the same, with Kate sitting on the chair smiling at her and Chloe out in the hall and this Chloe, here, wrapping around her and _holding_ her.

A hand carrying the weight of more bracelets than fingers raises from around Max's waist to gently trace parted lips, but neither of them turn around.

" _You have to let go._ " Chloe whispers in her ear and Max isn't even sure if it's real, anymore, but she catches her hand, anyways, and when she feels a small, cool band of silver around a finger the tears clog her throat.

And for a second-longer than last time and the time before that-she remembers. Just enough. _Enough._

"I miss you so much." Max breathes and from the way Chloe raises her hand up to reverently cup the ring hanging about a neck, Max guesses that she misses her, too. She's a little louder, now. A little less like a dream swimming behind her, and more like a _person._ Lips brush over her temple-the curve of her cheek-the dip of her jaw and it feels like Chloe's trying to breathe her in, trying to keep her here.

"You have to let go. I know it's hard. I know it's really fucking hard, because I'm just moving _forward_ , and I get that you're all over the fucking place, I don't even know if this is _you_ , but you have to hear me. Some future you has to hear me. You have to let g-"

"Max?" Kate asks again, looking up from her drawing, watching Max smile at her sadly from the door. Alone.

Max's body barely sways and her hand slowly falls from the air it clung to, a slim smile painting the brunette's features.

"Max?" Kate asks a thousand times, "Are you alright?"

 _No. Not even close._

But this time, Max doesn't tell her.

 **C.P**

"I'm telling you, it just doesn't make sense." Chloe says for the thousandth time this month. This year. (like she has for the past few years). The more science she understands, the less of their lives she does, and Max just hums like she's not listening. Which she probably isn't. Not that Chloe can really blame her because she totally does the same thing whenever Max talks about...well, anything that really involves her profession as long as there aren't pictures to go on with it. The picture book version is always good.

"You'll figure it out." Max pipes up over the sound of a screwdriver in the distance, tinkering with her camera. Thoughtlessly encouraging her without paying a fuck all of attention.

"I'm talking about the storm." Chloe tells her, gesturing widely towards a large red line on their wall scattered with graphs and notes and pictures of them, and Max looks up, then.

"Did you figure more of it out?"

"No, it...it makes even less sense now than it did then." Chloe shakes her head, hand pushing through blonde hair, fingers raking it out. It's a little long, now, and sometimes she borrows Max's hair-ties to keep it in place, but half the time strands fall out, anyways. "Those kinds of climate changes, they're...it's all cause and effect. Those would've taken-it's the second law of thermodynamics!" Chloe argues. Max visibly pays a little less attention, then, eyes glossing over. "Okay, I'll stop using big words."

Max throws a nearby screw at her.

"Those kinds of changes," Chloe continues, ducking the small little thing, "Those take years to happen. I mean, that's...decades of shit all coming together. There's no way you changing time in the bathroom caused it."

"It...didn't?"

"No way." Chloe sighs, running that same hand over her forehead, "But if time's a line, I don't get why it would've...it doesn't make sense."

Entropy. _Entropy._ But there's one piece she's missing. One small sliver of a timeline that doesn't make sense.

A sigh.

"But I'll figure it out. I feel like I'm...I don't know, it's like...it's like it's looking me in the fucking face. But don't worry about it, Bat-Max, I'm not shining your super signal. I just...don't get it."

Max sets down the camera to walk over and kiss the crown over her head, "Welcome to my strange and messed up world."

Chloe chuckles, gently catching her forearm and tugging her close, wrapping Max's arm around her shoulders.

"Come on, Doc, take a break and...help me look for that screw I threw at you? I so actually needed that."

"Only if you buy me lunch after, Marty McMax. I don't work for free."

"Deal."

 **M.P**

The wind rips through her hair and Max is on the ground, knees digging into dirt and rain and-the storm. The tornado.

"Max!" Chloe screams over the wind, stumbling down next to her, arm wrapping around her shoulders. "Max!" She tries to pull her close, tries to tug her away from the chart of the storm. Away from the rest of the world. The necklace around Max's neck wildly shakes and quakes and, when Chloe pulls her into her arms, rests between them.

Max doesn't know why she's crying but she doesn't stop until the town's gone and she rewinds.

 **C.P.**

"Do you think there's an alternate reality out there where we never met?" Chloe looks up from an avalanche of paper on their floor to her girlfriend that's sprawled out on top of it _like_ she's an avalanche of paper, twirling two rings Chloe's always had in the sunlight, watching metal catch with the life and the city as it creates kaleidoscope circles around their apartment.

"What?"

"I know we don't believe in Alternate Universes, anymore. Or Chaos theory. We're leaning towards the-what was it?"

"Arrow of Time."

"Right. I know we're leaning towards the Arrow of Time thing," Max raises up a hand to gesture towards the large line on their wall, still scattered with photos and letters and notes, not standing. "But if there were other universes, do you think there's one where I never met-"

"No." Chloe says immediately. It comes out of her before she knows why-rises straight up from her stomach with such conviction that the simple sentence makes both of them blink.

"How do you know?" Max sits up, then, searching Chloe's eyes over a cascading sea of paper.

"I don't know. I just...do."

Like how she knows not to pin both of Max's wrists. Like how she knows not to kiss her neck. Like she knows what color is her favorite and what song is her favorite and what Max looks like when she laughs underneath the ruffling sail.

She just _does_ , and she's never bothered asking why.

"You sound really sure of yourself." Max notes, crawling over to her, kissing her shoulder as she does, head falling to lazily rest against her shoulder. A shoulder that Chloe shrugs.

"Some things you don't need science for."

"Chloe?" Max's fingers raise to gently push the hair out of blue eyes and there's something serious on her face-in deep eyes-something old and quiet and understanding. There's something different about the way a smooth jaw sets, like inevitability, but it doesn't register. Not yet. The rings are held between them, and Chloe doesn't notice the way the sun catches against them, anymore.

"Hmm?" She leans into Max's hand, anyways.

"Do you ever get the feeling you've done all of this, before?"

Chloe's eyes open and two sets of blue meet, the pencil slackening in a tilted hand as Max holds her upright. There's something in Chloe's chest-something that clenches _painfully_ but then eases the longer she searches familiar eyes.

"I'd do it a thousand times over if it meant I was right here." She murmurs and Max's features soften, a smile lighting up the edges of her lips.

"And you say _I_ say cheesy things." Max whispers before kissing her and kissing her and kissing her until Chloe forgets all about her homework, at all. Chloe barely hears her, a whisper in her ear that feels like a content _smile._

That feels like a love of fate.

" _I would, too."_

That's when Chloe picks up an old dusty book and stops studying just science, but _soulmates,_ too.

 **M.P.**

"What, now, Max?" Chloe screams over a tornado, both of them rushing into town-

The train is heading towards them. The buildings are tearing themselves apart. Lisa is probably flying above them along with a 1977 Needham and their friends and Chloe's family and Max remembers, for once, where she is. She remembers what she couldn't do. She grabs the ring around her neck.

"Get to the diner! Throw sand on the gas!" She hastily explains because she's here. She remembers, now, the way the sun would set on the cross of a memorial. Maybe she can do it. Maybe she can do it all. She ducks underneath a sign flying past them out of muscle memory and can't see Chloe, anymore, but she can see the hospital.

Kate.

But Chloe can't let Max go, either.

"Ma-"

 **C.P.**

"Oh my God." Max is still fucking gaping at it and, okay, maybe Chloe's taken a few pictures of her face, herself. Who would blame her? "Oh my _God_ Chloe."

Her hands are covering her mouth and Chloe can't help the spreading beam. "Look at you, big shot."

"They said-they said-featured!" Max furiously whispers, cheeks red from more than just the cold and Chloe looks up to the very, very large featured billboard in the middle of Times Square. "They didn't say-"

"Looks pretty fucking featured to me."

"Chloe!" Max shoves her shoulder. And then tugs her close and buries her nose in her neck like she's not twenty four. "Chloe."

"Max! Max?" She playfully repeats, voice sing-song and Max barely peaks up from the roll of her shoulder to look at a picture she was shaking from a polaroid a month before.

"That's my picture."

"That's your picture, babe." Chloe agrees.

"That's my picture." She repeats.

"Totally yours."

"That's my picture!" The excitement finally tips up her voice and Max is five galleries and a steady commission-base in but none of that is _Times Fucking Square_ big (okay, it's not really Times Square, but it's close enough that it counts). Her arms wrap around the crook of Chloe's bending neck and she jumps up into her arms, the blonde faithfully catching her as she laughs.

They don't have a picture of this moment-no one knows them or cares or points in a crowded city street like New York-but out of all of the moments in their lives that they shared, this, _this_ moment, with Max so proud and happy and laughing and launching herself into Chloe's arms…

This is a moment that wouldn't be so bad to come back to, if she could rewind, too.

 **M. P.**

She can't hold onto much, anymore. Her mind feels...it feels so lost. Her brain feels like fragments. Like slivers.

"Where am-" She looks up and sees the hospital. When did she ever come here? Did she ever come here?

She was here a minute ago. Chloe was here a minute ago. She must have rewound. She must have-

"Max!" Chloe's screaming behind her.

The tornado. Right. She came here to-

Kate.

Max runs into it just in time to hear it collapse.

 **C.P**

Success doesn't keep the nightmares away.

It's something Chloe's never thought about, not once, because they've been together for more years than Max was ever gone, now, and it's never once come up. They've never talked about it-never discussed it-and it's sort of fucking flooring her as she's staring at Max.

"You have to go out of town?" Chloe repeats for the fifth time and at least she isn't alone because Max looks just as shell-shocked as she does. They're both fucking _pacing_.

"And you have that presentation. On...what science mumbo jumbo are you studying now?" Max repeats. They've repeated this small conversations enough times for Chloe to idly wonder if Max's rewind power is broken. They keep pacing.

"...fuck."

"Super fuck." Max agrees.

"Super astronomical fuck." Chloe one-ups. They both collapse onto their couch at the same time. "How did I never-what the fuck kind of couple hasn't spent a single night apart in like-"

"Six and a half years."

"I know how long we've been together, Captain Obvious." Chloe runs a hand over her face.

"What kind of couple doesn't even _notice_ they've never spent a single night apart in like-"

"Six and a half years." Chloe's lips twitch. Max punches her arm.

They both groan and bury hands in their palms.

"Shit." Max groans.

"Super shit." Chloe agrees.

"Super astronomical shit." They both say at the same time, sharing a small smile before looking forward, Max's ankles tucking next to each other while Chloe's legs splay open, minds working.

"You still have nightmares." Chloe quietly points out. They're not as often, now, but they're there-she _knows_ they're there-and the thought of not being there for them makes her want to tell more than half of the committee for her dissertation to go fuck off. Which is...still a sentence that's weird to be bouncing around in Chloe's brain. (The dissertation part, not the _fuck off_ part, which she might tell them to do, anyways).

"I know." Max swallows, blue eyes darting down to her clasped hands, resting on thighs, and Chloe reaches over to gently take one of them. "Your phone's still busted, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Chloe quietly curses the rain and the city and her phone she's been too busy to repair. The thought of not being able to stay in touch makes her anxious in a way she doesn't know what to do with. Because as the years have unraveled, so have Max's lips about Mark Jefferson and she _knows,_ on the flipside, how paranoid Max gets about her getting shot anytime she goes to the bathroom, so she just…

Fuck.

The taller girl groans, "We are so not a normal couple."

"Nope." It's an obvious agreement. "I can...maybe I can cancel and-"

"Woah, woah. No way in hell. This is big." Chloe takes Max's other hand, tugging her across the gap on the couch to rest against her. "This is...big-big. This is showing up Victoria Chase at a gallery big. This is _you need to do this_ big."

"I know. But I-"

"Come on, Super Max. You...we fucking made it out. You made it. You're the master of _Time_ , one day apart won't kill us, right?" Maybe not the best phrasing. A long pause.

God, this is pathetic.

Chloe shifts, inevitably offering: "Look, there's a payphone down the street…"

"Now you're talkin' my language, Price." Max smirks, shifting so that she's sitting in her lap, "Let's talk unhealthy codependency all up in this _bidness_."

"God, you're lucky I love you, you loser."

"Takes one to know one."

They don't make it one day, let alone three. The apartment feels way too large without Max's body hogging the covers and they both still pinch pennies out of habit so it feels like a rock in the gut when Chloe buys a disposable phone just to call her, but it's worth it. Every single sliver off that rock. Because Max sounds so relieved and tired and still a little excited and Chloe's heart feels like it's fucking strangling itself in her chest.

They talk through the night, lazy and quiet like they would in the apartment, and Chloe falls asleep to the sound of Max's steady breathing on the line in a hotel days away.

It's hours later that she wakes up to a whimper of her name, clutching the phone to her chest, and listens to Max curl into herself in a place where Chloe can't curl around her. A nightmare. So she talks to her-tries to wake her up-and it takes ten minutes of pressing and pressing and desperate pleading until the groggy voice on the other end startles awake.

"Chloe?" Max sounds so small on the other end.

"I'm here. I'm here."

And suddenly it's different.

"Chloe?" Max repeats and Chloe can hear the tears. She sounds frantic. Not like Max waking up from a nightmare. She sounds like- "Where am I?" She sounds like Max when she used to wake up from-

No. Oh, no. No way.

"Max?"

"Oh." And then, just like that, it's gone. It's replaced by something else. It's like that same look that happens every now and then. That look where Max is suddenly staring off into space, unseeing, and comes back. That look where it feels like she's a million miles away across a sea of white and Chloe can't reach her. "Oh, Chloe. I had the worst nightmar-"

"I'm coming to Oregon." It's an immediate response. Chloe's already packing her bag. Six hours. Six hour flight. No truck, this time.

"What? Chloe, come on, we can totally do this daily separation thing. It was just a nightmare. You have a presentation to-"

"Do you remember waking up?" Chloe pointedly asks, and she finally gets why the looks bug her. Finally pieces together what's been eating at her chest like entropy. Like _entropy._ Like her body's losing its energy, because she knows exactly what that look on Max's face used to be. It was her forgetting. It was her _spacing_. It was her jumping worlds to a different dimension and coming back as herself for a few minutes before not being Max _at all_. Before Max forgot everything, including her, and became a different version of herself.

That look is the look Max used to get when she was on auto-pilot.

There's a long, long moment of silence.

"Don't lie to me, Max."

"...no."

"How long has this been-have you been rewinding?" Chloe's shoving her bag on her shoulder and grabbing her keys.

"No." Max again replies. "I just...it's nothing, Chlo. Sometimes I just...I just lose touch for a little while. It's nothing maj-"

"You lose touch with reality and you don't think that's kind of an important thing to mention? A-O River, Captain Max."

"Okay, how long have you been waiting to drop that joke on me since I've been in Portland?"

"All fucking day but that's not the point, I'm trying not to freak out on you, right now."

"Baby, I'm okay-"

"I know you're not okay if you just seriously called me _baby_. I'm coming to Oregon." But Chloe doesn't hang up the phone, she just heads towards her car instead. Voice furious and worried and a little strangled with hurt, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't even know I was doing it. At first, anyways." There's a heavy sigh over the shitty prepaid cell reception line and Chloe trots a little faster, cursing public transportation for the first time in New York.

"How long has it been happening?"

"I...don't know. Seriously," Max cuts off a protest she must be able to hear coming, "I don't know. But it's not like anything happens. I just...it's not like I'm rewinding time, I just...feel like I did. For a second. For a little while. And when I look around everything feels like...it's not supposed to be the way it is. I don't know how to describe it."

Entropy, Chloe wants to tell her. _Fucking_ _ **entropy.**_

"I woke up tonight and it's dark in here and I thought...I looked up and I…" Max's breath stills and Chloe nearly snaps the phone in two she's holding it so tightly.

"Did you think you were back in the dark room?" She gently asks. The silence on the other end is all she needs. "Fuck, Max."

"I think...I think it's just my mind, sometimes. I saw Victoria today and I think that just...brought up a lot of old stuff and-"

"What does Victoria Chase have to do with the dark room?" A pause. Gentler, "Max?"

"I think there's a few things I have to tell you when you get here."

The flight is six hours and Chloe doesn't sleep the whole way. When she gets to the airport to see Max's slouching, tired form, still clad in jeans and a jacket like they're home-or like it's one AM in the Portland airport-Chloe tugs her close and kisses her so hard that she's sure it'll bruise. It's telling enough that Max just kisses her back and tugs her closer and buries her nose in Chloe's neck when they break apart.

"I know now isn't the time to be selfish or be really, really glad you got on that plane when you had that presentation tomorrow that you've been working on for weeks but I-"

"Max, can it." Chloe whispers in her ear and cups her cheeks and kisses her, again.

"What did you tell them?" Max tangles their fingers and tugs them towards a rental car someone else is paying for (living the large life) and a hotel a few miles away.

"The truth." Chloe kisses Max's knuckles. "Family emergency."

 **M.P.**

"Kate!" Max is screaming, digging through the rubble. She's a little earlier. Chloe's a little further. "Kate!" It tears from her lungs. "Kate!" Chloe is tugging her away from the building and Max sobs against her. "Kate." She desperately whispers against Chloe's neck.

"She's gone, Max." Chloe whispers in her ear, trying to hold the other girl up, but they both always wind up where they always do.

Let go. Let go. Let go.

Max knows. She pulls out the picture she never should have taken, anyways.

 **C.P**

It's not the first gallery of Max's Chloe's been to, by now-stacked pictures on the wall with Max's name underneath each one of them like badges of earned honor-but it might be her favorite just for who's attending. Joyce's arm is tight around her, her mother causing a hell fuss over her daughter's dress (there was nothing else to get on short notice, so dress and heels it was, she guessed) before tugging both Chloe and Max into a tight hug. Victoria appears around the corner not long after and Chloe's only met her a handful of times, maybe-remembers Rachel talking about her a few times and Max talking about her a few, as well-remembers swinging by for a handful of minutes at 'catching up' lunches with Max whenever Victoria was in New York, and the younger woman still looks like she just popped out of a _Charming Charlie_ magazine.

Max pulls away with a squeeze to Joyce's arm before she moves away to greet her old quasi friend, Chloe's eyes tracking her the whole time.

"Max told me you weren't going to make it. Something about being all proud of you for a 'mumbo jumbo science presentation?" Her mom's eyebrow raises and Chloe laughs, lowering her glass of wine when she watches Max hug Victoria, turning to face the diner queen.

"Yeah, I flew in last night to surprise her." And Chloe leans forward to bump her shoulder against her mom's because things got so much better between them when she left. When Max finally calmed her down and the world settled. "Sorry, by the way. About not making it on your birthday. We, uh...we were in Seattle for a while."

"How's Vanessa doing?" Joyce bluntly asks, a tsk on her tongue, both of them looking back towards Max.

"Honestly, ma? Kind of like shit. But she's hanging in there."

"That has to be tough on Ryan." Chloe looks up and thinks that her mom would know and she turns back to see Max laughing at something Victoria's said. Actually laughing. Normally, Chloe would be over there in a flash, but after last night...maybe she's just growing up, or it's actually just good to hear Max laugh instead of mold herself against her like a wet leaf. "It's nice to still see you two together."

A blink, looking back up at her mom. "Oh, right, I forgot you always wanted us to get it on."

"She's good for you. You're growing up." And it's the sincere sort of gesture that surprises her-makes Chloe a little speechless for a few minutes, "Max calls me, too, you know. And she lets me in on what you don't tell me."

"Of course she does." Blue eyes roll at that.

"And I'm proud of you." Joyce is suddenly hugging her and Chloe has to think fast to not spill her wine on either of their dresses. A swallow. "You're good for Max, too, you know." That's something she never thought her mother would say about her and anyone but maybe Satan a few years ago and she's not about to start blubbering in a public place.

"Hella good for me." A voice agrees to their right and it seems like Chloe isn't the only one with a Max-dar, Max's got one rattling in her brain, too. Only she's tugging Victoria in tow behind her, Chloe's eyes flicking down to note a bundled book tucked underneath the new face's arm.

"Good timing, Spider Max. Things were starting to get cloudy in here and I haven't even had a drink, yet." Chloe thoughtlessly reaches forward to tug Max back against her side. The photographer never sticks here for long, not at these sorts of things, and she's gotten used to the whole...Max having to mingle thing. But something about them being so close to Arcadia Bay has all of her senses on alert. She's got a feeling Max the Featured won't veer too far from her, for once, and Max doesn't shy away from the half embrace, gesturing between the three of them.

"Victoria, this is Chloe, you two met a while back, if you remember. And I'm sure you met Joyce Masden back at the diner, right? The Two Whales?" Max plucks Chloe's drink from her hand and makes a face at the taste. (Max Caulfield, raised too pompously on box wine and what Chloe, no matter how older they get, still dubs _the classy shit_ , doesn't seem too fond of the high-tasting stuff, still.)

"Right." Victoria nods, smiling politely, if a little curtly, at the both of them, stretching out her hand. Max nudges her side and Chloe takes it, offering a smile. "Nice to see you, again, Joyce. And Chloe. Max talks a lot about you. You know, she's kind of _always_ talked a lot about you, but what's new."

Now that's starting to sound a bit more like the Victoria Chloe heard about.

"What can she say, she digs me." Chloe offers for Max who rolls her eyes and takes another sip of wine before placing it back in Chloe's thoughtlessly opening palm. "So do you have stuff up here, too? I haven't had a chance to look around."

"Sure, the real talent is right around the-"

It's amazing, really, how Max can give people a look, sometimes. This all-knowing Moral Max look that reminds Chloe that Victoria must've grown up too, because the other blonde holds up her hands to an amused look from both Joyce and Chloe.

"-everywhere. It's a great show. Stop staring daggers through my jacket, Caulfield, this is new. And cashmere. Mine are on the left. Max's are featured on the right. The other artists you can find on the directory. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go talk to less morally demanding people." But the way Victoria says it-the way her lips barely tuck up in a smile before Max leans forward to squeeze her arm in familiarity-the way she holds up that familiar book as she moves past them, means that Max must've gotten to her like she gets to everyone else.

"Was she holding what I think she was?"

"Yeah." Max wraps Chloe's arm around her waist and maybe the brunette feels being so close to Arcadia Bay, too.

Her gut feeling was right. It's the first art show that Max stays glued to her side the whole time, and lets Chloe look at each and every one of her pictures for however long they want-they even make it over to the other side-and Max has this quiet, self-satisfied smile on her lips by the end of it. Joyce and Step-Dude (he graduated the year he helped them buy food for a month when they were scrapping it day to day, not questioning why they were gone for so long like Joyce did) have slipped out with hugs and handshakes with an invitation to a rebuilt diner they still haven't _really_ visited, yet when, an hour later, Chloe and Max find themselves on the balcony of the art gallery, heels kicked off and another glass of wine shared between them.

It tastes expensive and awful and she downs another half of the glass before passing it to Max like the blunts she doesn't smoke anymore. Often, anyways.

(Sometimes, if it's been a _particularly_ shitty week, Max will even smoke one with her, but she knows the brunette hates feeling _drugged_ just as much as she knows the rest of it).

"Did you have to tell my mom I haven't proposed? She's gonna be on my ass about it for, like, the rest of our _lives_." Chloe groans and Max just shrugs-actually just _shrugs_.

"What was I supposed to do, tell her we're married?"

"Uh, duh." Chloe can't keep a straight face with Max laughing like that.

"No way. She'd kill me for not inviting her to the wedding and I'm _so_ not about that life."

"You know what year it is and that you can stop saying stuff like that, right?" Chloe teases. " _You_ could propose, you know. Why am I supposed to do it? Tell Joyce it's your fault for not proposing."

Max, a little tipsy and beaming and giddy enough to where _Chloe_ is, too, because it's infectious, when Max is relaxed, like this, leans up into her. "Because," She says simply, like it makes all the sense in the world: "You're taller."

They both laugh and lean against the balcony, passing the disgusting fancy wine between them and Chloe wonders if Max knows she's going to do it, one day, anyways. Probably. They have time. They have time.

"Chloe?" Max asks, toeing on her heels, raising her eyebrows, Chloe humming in response, "Want to go make out in the bathroom until we're sober enough to drive?" Max leans out to tangle their fingers, already guiding her back towards the bathroom, a warm laugh bubbling from the blonde's throat. This dress was totally worth it.

"I love art galleries. They make you so fucking classy."

Another hour later, Chloe barely hears the bathroom door open and close to the sound of Victoria Chase grumbling: " _Great, so there's a sight I'll never get burned out of my retinas._ "

 **M.P.**

"Max?"

She's not ready, yet. Her head is splitting and pounding and she nearly loses whatever lunch she ate, this day (and she really doesn't want to lose her love for Joyce's pancakes, just in case) so before she can focus, she rewinds.

"Ma-"

 **C.P.**

"How did you two meet, anyways?" Victoria asks as they're all sitting up on the edge of a cliff, lighthouse sort of symbolically behind them. There's plaques everywhere and in the distance, if Chloe focuses enough, she can see the memorial they'd built at the school where there's an etch of Rachel and Kate's names. She knows Max can see it, too. Portland was close enough to Arcadia Bay and it doesn't hurt as much to visit, anymore. Not since Joyce's diner is fixed up and Max doesn't look like she's about to go all mummy-mode when they walk through it.

They've come back for holidays here and there but they can both still feel the lingering heaviness in the air. They say a tornado changes it-changes the taste and the weight and the smell of the air-and to Chloe, it never really felt like it changed back.

Still, Max leans back against her, both of Chloe's knees tented, beers passed between all three of them. They didn't ask why Victoria offered to drive because it didn't really seem like necessary so...they're doing the reminiscing, drinking beers by the lighthouse thing.

Chloe just considers it a prelude to Max's 10 year that she might never attend. Kind of hard to attend a reunion that she never graduated from, right? Will they even invite her?

Probably. Max isn't famous but she's accomplished and nothing makes a reunion better than accomplished.

"We've been friends since we were kids." Chloe offers, taking a long sip of beer. "We were, what, seven?"

"I think you were eight." Max leans up to take a long sip, "I remember it was snowing and my parents were packing up, my Dad had just gotten this offer in Seattle-"

"Why didn't he ever take it, anyways?"

"Because of the whole car thing." Max offers. Chloe's brows knit. "Well, that time. He took it when he was offered again when I was older."

"What car thing?"

"Don't you remember the car? You know, that time you valiantly saved my life that you never let me live down for years?" Max raises her eyebrows.

"Oh, I-wait, what?"

Victoria looks between them, maybe a little amused, taking a long sip of her own beer.

"She pushed me out from a car and tackled me into the snow. She saved my life. Kind of like a really angry guardian angel." Max shoves her shoulder and Chloe's chin tips back, Murmuring:

"All I remember is running."

"What?"

"I remember...I remember snow and I guess there could have been a car. I remember that balloon and," Her eyes slit, "I remember running. I don't remember any of that." Snow. Something in her chest that she was probably too young to identify. Worry. Fear. _Something_. She remembers _running_. Max's hand gently cups her cheek. Chloe shakes her head. Now who's spacing? "The next thing I remember is that blanket fort."

They both smile. "That was a good fort."

"That was a shit fort."

"We got better at it." Max exclaims.

"Wow, you too are, like...disgustingly in need of a room, right now." Victoria pipes in, but there's something in her eyes as she looks away from them towards the town.

"Hey, you-" Chloe starts to pipe up, but Moral-Max is on the case, hand curling around Chloe's forearm and the blonde rolls her eyes and snaps back up the beer as a toll.

"We had one. You're the one that drove us out here." Max notes, smile genuine in that kind of way that makes people fall head over heels for her, but Victoria's shoulders barely sink, eyes lingering on that memorial at the school. "And if you're jealous, I'm sure you'll have someone to bicker like an old lady with, too. Eventually."

"Whatever. As if." Victoria looks like it's anything other than _as if._

They change the topic after that.

It's not until Victoria's asleep in the back of the car that Chloe scratches her jaw, fingers curling around the steering wheel.

"We have two different memories of how we met, don't we?" Max asks for her, both of their thoughts seemingly lingering on the same thing. It's funny, really, how they talk so frankly about stuff like this. How they learned to communicate without having to communicate, but learned to talk, too. That nothing's crazy, anymore. "Why do you think-"

Chloe reaches across the console and just holds her hand, not answering, both of them looking back towards the road, because she has _no fucking clue._ They have two different memories of how they met-she can _feel_ it-and she has no clue why.

"I think we do." Chloe agrees. "And I don't know."

But she's going to find out.


	6. Chapter 6

_**AN:** __So I did manage to edit/bang this one out. Ish. Mainly because tomorrow is my day off and I'm drinking. Idk if people even read this, but I sincerely appreciate the ones that do from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for sticking through with me, friends. We're almost to the end. Everything in this story is intentional, for better or worse, but I do always love hearing critique on it, so thank you for everyone who gives it to me! :)_

 **The Slow Spider.**

 _"And this slow spider, which crawls in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and I and you in the gateway, whispering together, whispering of eternal things – must not all of us have been there before? And return and walk in that outer lane, out there, before us, in this long dreadful lane – must we not eternally return?"_

Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

 **C.P.**

"It doesn't make sense." The bottle hangs from her hand like a priest's cross, fingers skimming up pictures and strings patched together over a huge, red line like a child fingerpainting God. "None of it makes any sense."

The window is barely cracked open, whistling through their apartment, and she doesn't hear when Max opens the door. But part of her must, because she turns to face her on bare feet with dark-rimmed eyes. "Why would you forget?" She asks her like Max knows.

"Chloe." It's barely a sigh, dropping bags onto the floor and, rather than crossing the small distance to their kitchen, crosses the distance to her, instead, fingers smoothing over her shoulders, "You're not totally killing yourself over all of this, again, are you? Come on, the me...zoning out thing is old news. Yesterday was just a fluke. I told you, I'm fi-"

"It's happening more." Chloe cuts her off, daring her to argue, and Max, for once, doesn't. Just takes a dangling wrist in her hand, walking backwards towards their bed, tugging Chloe down on top of her.

"It doesn't make sense." Chloe mumbles against her neck, fingers curling into her shoulder like she might lose her. "Why would you forget? If you're on a line, and you went forward and back, again, what happens to that...that part of you that forgets-"

"Sometimes," Max whispers against the shell of her ear, "Science-Chloe, nothing has to make sense in order for it to work. Sometimes, things just...are. They just do."

"But-"

"I don't know." Max kisses her ear. "I don't know how any of it works. But...but right now I'm here. And you're here. And that's all that matters, right?"

"Yeah, fine, okay, science-killer. I-" Chloe rests her ear over a familiar heartbeat and closes her eyes. "Oh, shit." She groans, and then sluggishly lifts up onto elbows the moment that horrible, horrible feeling settles in her chest. "Oh, shi-"

"Chloe," Max winces, probably immediately recognizing the tell-tale sign of the vom-pocalypse on Chloe's features. "How much did you dri-"

"-iiiit." She's scrambling off of the bed to cast hell demons from her stomach into the toilet, Max slowly getting out after the bed to pull back her hair. "Oh, man."

"I keep telling you we should've thrown out that stuff in the fridge from-"

"Shut up." A groan, forehead falling to rest on the rim. "It's all we had. I science best when I'm hammered."

"Yep, that makes some of the papers you've written make total sense."

"You know you're close enough for me to vom on, right?"

Max shuts up and rubs her back, instead, until both of them wind up slouched on luke-warm tile underneath muggy air, the faint scent of _Jameson_ making itself known. Lingering, like Jameson always does. Eventually blue eyes crack and when she wakes up on the floor of their bathroom, head leaning against their small shower, she kind of has an epiphany. She has an epiphany, watching the way familiar breath brushes against her thigh-watching how Max's eyelashes flutter and her eyebrows barely knit and her fingers hold onto Chloe like she'll never let go-because...maybe she 'sciences' best when she's drunk, but she _loves_ best in the faint hours of the morning, sun barely shining through the dark room, with Max leaning against her.

 _You ever get the feeling we've done this all bef-_

Maybe she can't solve the equation because she's looking at the wrong end-result.

Maybe Max doesn't forget.

Maybe Max never forgets.

 **M.P.**

It's blurry. Blinding. She never knew the world could be both, before, until she was seven and took a picture of Chloe leaning too close to a window at noon. The light pierced through two panes of glass like a sword and the picture was so bright all she could see was the edges of Chloe's skin, painted brushes of peach and heaven. Even when she was eight, Chloe had snatched the snapped-dry picture from her best friend's fingers and squawked, "Woah, these polaroid camera take _weird_ pictures!" Because the light had blurred around the edges-smeared and distorted and overwhelmed-and Chloe looked like she was being sucked into a white void of nothingness, but the way the blonde had looked at it with nearly knowing, adoring eyes had made Max never give up. She'd learned how to make it right. How to balance between movement and light, and when Chloe handed her the picture she'd beamed and said, "You should take more of them."

So she did. She never stopped.

It's a memory-she remembers, she _remembers_ -that burns her throat like swallowed sand when she's suddenly hunched over in a bright room, hand snapping out to curl around wood, end-table rocking and unsteady underneath her palm.

It nearly clatters to the floor with all of Kate Marsh's drawings, bright colors and pastels and too-white hospital tile.

"Max?" She feels like she's swimming and when she blinks she doesn't really blink at all and she swears around the halo of Kate's head are the over-exposed edges of burnt negatives. "Oh, Max. Are you okay?"

"What?" Her voice rasps and she blinks, again, but the camera in her eyes can't focus on the concerned lenses of her friend. Chloe. _Chloe_.

Kate.

"Max, you're bleeding." Kate kneels in front of her like she's an altar at church and Max can barely breathe. She doesn't feel fingers so gingerly brush against her nose and before Max knows what she's doing, a picture flutters from her hands to the white tile floor and she's falling forward like an angel diving off of the fucking dormitory building, arms so uselessly tenting out, and Kate somehow stumbles to catch her, arms clumsily wrapping around her back.

She's too good of a person, Max thinks, because Kate doesn't even know what the hell-what her _hell_ -is going on and she holds her, anyways, a hint of concern and love in her voice that makes the _Time Lord's_ shoulders quake. "Max?"

She doesn't respond. She just buries her nose in Kate's neck and sobs.

She doesn't remember what came before this or what will come after, because Max knows she's never done this, before.

She remembers the hospital toppling and remembers Kate's book and remembers the way Chloe smiles in the crook of her neck when it's Sunday and neither one of them want to get out of bed, so they don't. The more she does this, the more Max remembers and the less she remembers and the more the world crumples around them like a balled up wad of ruled notebook paper.

Here she always loses Chloe unless she loses Kate. Here she always loses the world unless she loses Chloe. Here she always loses a piece of herself every single second because she's not enough-she's never enough-and she doesn't know how to stop trying.

Kate will die because it's a word problem Max can't figure out and Chloe will, one day, die because Max can't figure that out, either. She can't remember the last time she felt so lucid and so clear and it's all because Max is fucking _bawling_ into Kate Marsh's shoulder.

This time Chloe pushes open the door-Max can feel it; can feel this new reality send a shiver of butterflies aching up her spine-and she can't stand the look of hurt and desperation in blue when Max looks up to see her.

Max's eyes are as red as the blood staining underneath her nose, and when Chloe reaches out to her, the furious, broken rasp of " _Don't you fucking_ _ **dare**_ _, Max-"_ is barely out of her best friend's lips before Max reaches out towards her, as well, a gap of time and white between them, overexposed and too fucking bright.

And rewinds.

 **C.P**

"Can you believe it?" Chloe stretches her arms high above her head, elbows tenting out at the edges, Max settling on top of them in their dingy, snapshot-covered apartment. The sound of the city is mute in the background and she can't wrap her mind around all of it, shaking her head. "Me, badass extreme…" She has to wrap her mouth around the words, "Teaching. Who would've thought, huh?"

And Max looks at her so quietly-so seriously-no jokes or pretenses or calm shoves to her shoulder. No knuckles or barbs or anything but that small, proud smile that makes Chloe feel like she's done something right-like maybe, for one of the first times in her life, that she was _born_ right-and Max just tangles their fingers.

"Me."

"No way." Chloe challenges and this time Max does shove her shoulder.

"What, you think I'd sick a tornado on a town for someone who I didn't believe in?" Max raises up above her on stretching elbows, eyebrows raising in defiance. Chloe likes to think she's rubbed some rebel off on her, over the years, but she's pretty sure the world did that to Max all on its own. "I know it sounds totally...I don't know, Hollywood or _romantic_ or something, but the whole universe doesn't go after someone meaningless, Chlo. You were always destined for greatness, one way or another."

She doesn't believe in a lot of it, anymore-science makes it impossible to, these days-but she believes in the conviction in Max's voice. Believes in the destiny in soft blue eyes and the curl of warm fingers in long hair. Believes in fate in the way Max's lips brush over her forehead like Chloe is the reason the world exists.

"Stop getting all sappy on me, Max." It's a weak argument, throat suddenly tight and eyes wet and the overwhelming press of it is enough to tip away a chin so that she can have a breath of respite for a second. Just a second. "You're gonna make me cry."

"Don't you dare. Anytime you cry, I cry like a baby." Max dips that same hiding chin back and her mouth is warm and soft and loving on lips. "I'm so proud of you, Chloe."

"Grab the diapers." Chloe mumbles and Max punches her arm, this time.

Before they're both crying on the bed in the most ridiculous fucking display ever, anyways because they're both laughing and kissing, too, and the way Max's hands drag up her abdomen before their fingers tangle makes Chloe stop thinking it and _know_ it:

She was born right.

 **M.P.**

Max wipes at her eyes before she remembers there's nothing there. There's nothing anywhere. She's in the middle of class, now, the flash of a camera startling her from a future she doesn't know how to avoid-a future, according to Chloe, she remembers, was just a matter of time-and Max wonders how long she'll have her memories for. She wonders how long she'll be lucid for.

The classroom is brighter than the Dark Room ever was and when she tips her head back she sees Jefferson speaking and drops the camera on the ground, the clatter of it stilling his question.

She can't save Kate. She can't save Chloe. She's stuck in this cyclical loop of _linear time_ until she stops it. Stops it all. And she can feel her mind tearing itself apart. Can feel the blood under her nose even as she stands up, because this feels like a dream. It all feels like a dream and a nightmare and the reality because Max doesn't even remember what's real, anymore. Her hand curls around the ring around her neck as she wordlessly walks out of Jefferson's classroom, her once-classmates visibly stunned by the odd behavior.

" _Louis Daguerre_." Max answers him before the door closes behind her and, like she's a carwreck on the side of the road (and somewhere she is, somewhere, lying next to Chloe, begging her-begging her-begging her-she is), everyone in the class scrambles after her to watch, door slamming on Jefferson's response.

It's a fluid dance.

Max wordlessly reaches up in the middle of the hall, elbow raising up to smash the glass of a fire alarm before pulling it, walking up behind Nathan Prescott as he makes his way to the bathroom. He's erratic and shifty and she wonders if she memorized all of this like she memorized the storm-wonders if she's been here, too.

"Nathan." She tells him, turning him around, hand catching on his nervous, twitching shoulder, taking him enough aback to grab the gun from his jacket pocket. "You don't need this."

It feels out of character. It all feels so out of character. She feels like she's floating out of her body and watching herself do all of this, like she's reading a book she's starring in and screaming at too-white pages because she shouldn't _be_ this way. She should nervously twitch in class and shrug because she doesn't know the answer, over-run by Victoria Chase and sunlight and a quietly shuffling Kate in the corner. This isn't Maxine Caulfield, who only goes by Max and the world didn't _make_ her this way.

Chloe made her more than this. Chloe was her catalyst.

Max was never the cause and effect, Chloe was.

Chloe, who's beautiful and blue and confused as hell, trotting down the hall and skidding on worn shoes the moment she catches Max tugging the gun from Nathan's pocket.

"You're so much more than this, Nathan. Don't let them use you." Nathan looks stunned and shaking and Max stumbles backwards. "Don't let them _use you_."

"...Max?" Chloe asks and Max looks down at the gun. She hates guns. Hates them. It feels like a foreign weight in her palm and she remembers pulling the trigger of one, once, because there was a knife near her best friend's neck and Max was younger, then. Max didn't know the cause of every single flick and twitch of her finger, then, and her head is _killing her_.

She groans and stumbles and Chloe is the only person in the hall who sees a chick with a gun that steps forward to catch her.

"Max. Hey, it's...it's Chloe. Remember me? Best friend. Pirate. Co-captain. Look, you got the gun from Prescott, why don't you-hey!" Chloe rushes in front of her the moment David Masden shows up with a tazer, "What the hell are you doing? She just-"

"Max, why don't you put down the gun and we can all go back to class?" Jefferson is stepping forward like he's invincible-like his fucking Godly hubris complex is ingrained in the slick of his hair-and she whips around to face him. She didn't point the gun at Nathan. She sure as hell didn't point the gun at Chloe. But she points it at him. She aims for his heart like she knows how to shoot-and she does, she _does_ , Chloe taught her how; taught her over years with a laughing, smiling breath against her neck; taught her in a graveyard full of junk with bottles and cars and a whooping holler of a laugh-and she wishes she could kill him. She wishes she was Chloe, maybe, because Chloe would pull the trigger without a second thought. Chloe, in any time and universe and dimension, would tell him to go to hell.

Max remembers she pulled the trigger, once-she remembers a faint, flickering moment of a gunshot and a baseball bat coming towards her head and-

"You." She whispers, eyes stinging. Because she still remembers that room. She remembers desperately trying to carry Chloe out of it. She remembers Kate. Victoria. Remembers, even, herself. David. Rachel.

 _Chloe_.

"You." She repeats, stepping forward. "Why did you kill her?" She presses and the whole world is still. She's nauseous. Hateful. And Chloe stiffens beside her. Even not knowing what the hell is going on and pissed to hell and back, Chloe is still next to her, hand curving around her shoulder.

"Max, what are you-"

But she can see Jefferson's lips moving. And what she hears isn't what he says. Her mind is slipping, again. She's losing focus. The world is blurring and the gun trembles.

 _It wasn't me, Max. It was you._

She couldn't kill Chloe, the world ended. She couldn't kill the town, Kate died. She couldn't save Chloe, she's...here.

Here.

But she doesn't know how to get back further. She doesn't know how to break this cycle-how to go further than...how far did she go? How far? Seattle, wasn't it? Seattle. She'd gotten to Seattle, before-

 _Chloe pushing her onto the bed and crying and trusting her and hating her and loving her-_

 _-_ and she can't…

She can't focus. It's all tearing apart. None of it makes sense, anymore. It's like she took all of the photos on her wall and _burned_ them until they were negatives, tossing them into the air. Trying to shoot them with sense like bottles in a graveyard.

Maybe she doesn't have to kill Chloe. Maybe it was never Chloe. Maybe it's-

The gun turns towards herself. The gun raises up to her chin and Chloe sounds frantic.

"Max? Max, what the fuck are you-"

Max chokes on a pained sob, her head splitting in two like an avalanche-like a tornado making its way into Arcadia Bay as if it was parting the seas in divine intervention-like a bullet in Chloe's skull or-

 _Blood on cement. Asphalt. Fingers curling in her shoulder, tugging her closer, begging her-begging her-_

 _ **Go. Bac-**_

"Max?" Kate's voice is gentle and scared from down the hall, maybe trying to push through the crowd to get sight of her friend (would she? Kate would), view suddenly blocked by a girl that doesn't attend Blackwell as Chloe thrusts her way in front of the brunette. Thrusts her way into it like she thrusts her way into everything, eyes wide, suddenly desperately holding onto Max's shoulders, jacket slipping off of skin because her shoulders hang so low.

"Max." Chloe is pressing her up against the wall and the gun is in between them, familiar fingers curling in skin. " _Max._ What the fuck are you doing? Put it down." It's frantic and quiet and Chloe is suddenly so close that surely no one else in the hallway could even see it-could see Max pressing a gun against her own heart like Nathan did to Chloe-and her jaw trembles as she feels hands cupping her cheeks. There's a moment, a fragment of time, where she might feel metal against her cheek and when Chloe forces Max up to look at her, the gun slacks in a quivering hand. "Don't do this."

Her wrist eases until it's only their body weight keeping it up.

" _ **Please.**_ "

This isn't her. This isn't Max. This isn't the world that she tried to write for herself-the world her and Chloe created. None of it is. It's this momentary fuck-up glitch and Max knows Chloe doesn't understand but, God, her best friend tries to hold onto her, anyways. Tries to keep her from doing something stupid and irreversible no matter how much Max's brain and nose and fingers bleed.

"I'm just so tired." Max weakly murmurs, tears staining her vision. How long ago was it that she laid next to Chloe on the ground in the bathroom? How long has it been? How long has she been stuck here? even though she stands in front of her, Max misses her so much it _aches._

If she thinks hard enough, she can remember Chloe leaning above her in a bed, tears staining her cheeks, eyes barely slit-

 _I'm losing you-_

She said, once.

And now Max is in a hallway trying to pull a Kurt Cobain. She doesn't even know who she is, anymore. She'd give anything to hear Chloe tell her she that she's _Maxine Fucking Caulfield._

"It'll be okay. Just-just...don't. Okay?" Blue eyes are desperate and wet and she can't leave Chloe like this-any version of Chloe like this-so Max closes her eyes, selfish and weak and relenting.

"Don't."

She drops the gun and the world fades around her.

 **C.P**

The day Victoria Chase helps launch Kate Marsh's children's book, seven years after she died (publication, it turns out, takes awhile, even with connections) Max doesn't say anything. She doesn't say anything the whole day until they're both home and Chloe tries really hard not to push her. Even though Max is doing the quiet catatonic thing, she shuts it and locks it and throws away the key until the brunette quietly calls her name from the bed.

Chloe tries to act like she doesn't nearly knock over the nightstand rushing over to her side, plopping down next to her on the bed.

Max is just sitting there looking at it, hands wrapped around the cover. Closed.

A sigh. "Come on, Max. It's just a book." She wishes she could rewind because that's definitely not the right thing to say. She scoots closer. "I mean, it's a _book_. It's Kate's book. It's a good thing. It's finally here. You...you made her proud, you did it. This is a good thing."

Max's shoulders slump a little bit and when she reaches out and clenches her hand like she did in that tattoo parlor chair years ago- _just_ got feeling back in her hand, she swears-Chloe just brings her closer, and when Max gets to the end of the book and sees the final picture laminating the back page, she loses it.

It's a picture of Max and Kate that Chloe doesn't remember seeing in the stack.

"I-I don't remember-"

Max curls into Chloe's lap and cries like she finally lets Kate go and all Chloe can do is hold her.

 **M.P.**

"Max." Chloe's fingers brush through her hair and Max turns into her hand. She doesn't open her eyes. She doesn't want to know where she is. She doesn't want to know. "Max?" Well, at least she doesn't sound in duress or dying and eventually Max cracks her eyes open. They're laying in bed and Chloe's fingers are skimming down her cheek, immediately pausing when she sees her best friend is awake. Red and Blue, muted and warm, are dancing hues of life across the room as a flag rustles in the wind behind them, a window open, and Max gently reaches up to catch her hand, keeping it there before she can pull away.

Max must look like she's suddenly Benjamin Button, old and grizzly but still so young, because Chloe is searching her eyes like she wants to say something, but doesn't even know what.

"Did you-"

"Can we just lay here?" Max asks before Chloe ever can. She doesn't even want to know what the question was. "Can we just stay here, like we used to do when we were kids?"

"Don't you have classes or some shit?" Chloe looks wary-more like worried-and Max just shakes her head and shifts to rest her head over Chloe's heart.

"Frankly, my Dear," Max closes her eyes, other hand coming up to clasp a ring. She'll fix it, later. "I don't give a damn."

A hallway. Chloe. Is that where she came from? Is that-

There's a long pause, asking, "Did I point a gun at Jefferson yesterday?"

"Yep. Kind of hot, Max Payne."

"Shit."

She'll fix that, later, too. She'll have to go back. She always has to go back. But, for right now, she rests tired eyes and listens to the rhythmic, familiar flutter of Chloe's heart, nearly asleep when she hears a question she definitely wishes she'd cut off.

"Max...were you really going to...you know. Do it?" Chloe's voice is small and Max closes her eyes because she knows she isn't talking about shooting Jefferson.

"I don't know."

And she doesn't.

But Chloe stopped her, and maybe it's only fair, because how many times has Max kept Chloe from dying, now, even when she wanted it? Maybe, sometimes, that's what love is (how morbid). But not all the times. All the other times, she knows, closing her eyes and nuzzling into Chloe's neck…

All the other times, it's so much more. Love is so much more. It's worth so much more.

"You stopped me." Is all she says, instead, body sagging, Chloe's arms hesitating for only a moment before they wrap fully around, tugging her close until Max is wrapped in her. Until all Max can smell is cigarette smoke and a hint of pot and Chloe's shampoo. "I'm going crazy, Chlo." Max admits, like she's accepted it, already.

The sun shines through a peaceful, warm room, Chloe's arms tense and their breaths even.

"I'm going crazy."

 _But I'll find you, anyways._

 **C.P.**

They're naked and laughing and tangled in each other like they're always supposed to be. Chloe's been planning this for months but _trying_ to plan it for years and every time she tries to ask it all just winds up going to hell, anyways, so she figured she'd do the next best thing: sex.

It's a lazy Sunday and Chloe doesn't even know the date, just knows that Max's smile tastes like snowflakes and her eyes look content and dark and loving as she gasps, teeth biting at her neck. Max arches, just a little, legs wrapping around her waist as their fingers twine and Chloe can taste the way her pulse is racing.

"I love you." Max paints the air with her voice and Chloe looks up from the angry mark on her throat to search her face-to kiss her like neither one of them ever need air, again-and she's not sure what it is about this moment, but...but it's perfect. It's fucking perfect. Maybe agonizing over it for years was stupid (not like she'd tell Max because, yeah, like her head needs to get any bigger) because it doesn't really matter when she asks, does it? Not when there's a moment like this in front of them and she thinks it's ironic that she spends all of her days studying time when eternity's resting underneath her.

Eternity underneath her.

It's seven and a half years and Max's hipster bullshit romantic songs must finally be rubbing off on her to be thinking things like that.

Chloe kisses her chin-the dip of a neck-the hollow of a collarbone-a fluttering heart-a nipple-the swell of a breast-a hip...and then keeps going lower, fingers tangling in her hair. But she goes further down than Max probably hopes. A thigh. A knee. The curve of an ankle. A heel. The pinky toe Max always curls when she eats her pancakes. _Her_ pancakes, which she knows Max would pick over Joyce's for a fact (and if that isn't an accomplishment, she doesn't know what is).

And then she's on the ground, digging underneath the bed, and untucking a small box from it because when the hell else is she going to do it.

"Max," Her voice stumbles and her brows knit and Max leans up on her elbows, searching Chloe's face.

"What are you-where are you…okay, if you have to pee, you so have to hold...it?" Max shifts higher up, blinking, because she finally catches her eyes. "Why are you nervous?" Chloe hates that she can see right through her.

"Shut up, I'm not nervous."

She's nervous. She's kneeling on the side of the bed, struggling to detach this damn box from under the bed, and she's nervous. Okay, so spur of the moment isn't working out, either.

"Oh, God. You are. You're _so_ nervous."

"Now is _so_ not the time for teasing, Maxine." Chloe's kneeling on the fucking ground like a loser and Max is smirking down at her like she owns her and suddenly the blonde kind of wants to punch her. Not that she ever would. But she kind of wants to. But it's a good kind of _Max must be overwhelmed, too_ sign that she doesn't get her head chewed up for calling her Maxine. Because that smirk turns into something knowing a second before Chloe clumsily pulls the ring of a set she's always kept up from the small pouch underneath their bed. Finally. Fuck.

And then drops it.

"Oh, God, you're actually doing this right now."

"Now who's nervous?" Chloe tries to snap back but it falls so flat it's a little pathetic. And no amount of swallowing it down will hold it in her chest, hands a little clammy and she can see Max's eyes tear up, hands coming up to cover her mouth from the edge of the bed and Chloe's suddenly blinking through a haze of her own and she finally grabs the damn slippery band on the floor.

"Still you." Max murmurs and Chloe's heart clenches because she can _hear_ the soft smile on her girlfriend's face. "Come on, Chloe, you know I'm gonna say yes."

"Hey, spoiler alert. You didn't even let me ask." Chloe's breath smooths at the edges, hesitantly, into something so hopeful it nearly hurts. Suddenly Max is on the floor with her, the whole world shifting to accommodate the warmth from her body, fingers curving around her wrist to still her before Chloe can lift it the rest of the way up in offering. "Really?" Blue eyes slowly track up, both glad and terrified that Max is so close, their foreheads slotting together as the blonde raises the ring inbetween them.

"Of course I'm going to, you dummy." Max is practically in her lap and she has no idea whose tears are on her cheek, but there's no getting out of this with a suave, cool head, now.

"I was aiming for spontaneous and perfect." Chloe's nose turns into Max's neck, eyes closing as she holds her, feeling Max's fingers delicately skim along the rim of the silver band. Lips skim over a pulse-over the dip of a chin. "Mainly because I'm too chicken shit and almost did it a thousand times and figured this time, before I lost my nerve…"

"You proposed to me in the middle of sex, Chloe." Max points out, "So, yeah, I know I'm never going to hear the end of it, but...it's perfect. So ask already."

"Perfect? The sex or the-"

"Never going to hear the end of it." Max repeats and Chloe pulls away with a tearful laugh, moving to slide the ring on her finger. The brunette stops her. "You still haven't-"

"Oh, right." Chloe swallows, pulling back just enough to meet her eyes. "Max…" A deep breath, "Shit." Another laugh and Max leans forward to kiss her probably out of habit, trying to stem the nerves, and Chloe's hand curves over her shoulder to stop her, this time, right before their lips meet. "Max, you're...God, okay, you're the love of my life, alright? Of every life and every timeline and...and whatever the hell you've seen, I've loved you in it. I know it. I know the tornado still...sucks, sometimes." She winces because the pun was not intentional, for once. "I mean, I know that...I know it still hangs over us, sometimes, and maybe I should feel guilty, or something, that you've made me…" God, she can't even get it out. She tried practicing a speech over and over for the past three months and that was all shit. And now whatever this is won't even come out without her crying all over the place. "You've made me the happiest I've ever been, but I don't. Fuck it, I don't. I don't feel guilty. Because I love you. Because you taught me how to...to live and be proud of myself and be proud of _you_ and...and I can't imagine a world without you in it, Max. I never really thought I'd be the marrying type unless it was you, anyways, so I figured...we might as well get hitched, right? Because you're never getting rid of me, anyways."

Max laughs a strangled noise and kisses her so hard and sloppy that Chloe thinks it's her favorite, so far, of every moment they've shared here.

"Yes, Chloe." Max kisses her again and again and practically tackles her to the floor but she's smiling so wide that she can't bring herself to care. Maybe adding for effect, " _Hella_ yes." And then she finally catches sight of the inscription on the ring and laughs again. " _Partners in time._ " Chloe slides the ring the rest of the way on and immediately discovers the way it feels in her hair. Teeth nip a lip and fingers curl underneath a thigh and Max is entirely wrapped around her waist a few breaths later. "I love you."

Rolling shoulders hit the floor and the ring catches the soft glow of the streetlights as their fingers tangle and Chloe gently flips them, joined fingers tracing lives and promises along the worn plank wood of their apartment floor.

"Always."

 **M.P.**

Pieces. Fragments.

Smooth fingers brush through her hair, posing her because she's not perfect-

Rough fingers brush through her hair, posing her because she's not right-

Bloody fingers brush through her hair, cursing because she's tainted, now-

Delicate fingers brush through her hair- _Chloe, Chloe, Chloe?_ -because she's broken and tied- **Victoria, Victoria, Vic-**

Snap. Crackle. Pop. Like cereal from a time period she doesn't remember and her throat smells like gun powder as the blonde hits the-

Smooth fingers brush through her hair, posing her because she was born wrong-

Rough fingers brush through her hair, posing her because she failed-

Bloody fingers brush through her hair, but they're her own. They quake and they quiver, the dark room too bright, blood not just staining her nose but her hand and her chest and her hair and she-

Max's fingers quake as they raise to brush through her hair, the dark room too bright, blood not just staining her nose but her hands and her chest and she can't remember if Chloe's alive or dead or if Max is even breathing. She doesn't know if Kate's died or if Victoria's died or if she's in the dark room or the school pool or kissing Chloe underneath twinkling lights and smiles.

A needle in her neck. She fucking hates needles.

"Ch...lo…"

Fingers, fingers, fingers.

She rewinds.

 **C...**

They take each other's names-because what the hell is more romantic than that, anyways?-and get married in a small church outside of their first apartment with their friends and families and matching rings with different inscriptions. Chloe knows she's not supposed to see her for _luck_ but they've both had shit luck, anyways, (but extraordinary luck, together) and Chloe wants to make sure Max is alright after getting Mrs. C- _Vanessa_ -from the hotel, a few hours earlier.

Max is sitting in a chair still not dressed, Chloe's jacket hanging around her shoulders and bare feet tucked underneath her legs, body too small in such a large chair. She's looking out the window, camera sitting next to her, and she doesn't react until the blonde is kneeling in front of her, thumb gently-lovingly-wiping the red from underneath her nose.

It's getting worse. They both know it's getting worse. Max has to know it's getting worse.

"Chloe?" It's barely a whisper. "Where-"

Chloe's smile is a little sad and quiet as she cups her cheek, leaning up to kiss the tip of her nose. Max's shoulders ease underneath the soft touch, hand raising to curl around the back of her neck. Chloe wonders what happens in seconds like this-does she remember? Does part of her?-because, no matter what, Max always leans into her like a rock.

"You look beautiful." Max murmurs, eyes closing, leaning into her. "You sap."

"Who're you calling sap, Oak Tree?" Fingers work through hair until Max's body sags the rest of the way. They haven't been together for so long-for so much of their lives-to beat around the bush. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"

"I'm okay." Max's smile is slim and Chloe watches her eyes totally focus, then, and she can't help but wonder how many times this happens a day-when she's at school or the work-version of school-or when Chloe's sitting right next to her, making dinner. She wonders where Max goes, or how far back, and how much she remembers.

She'll watch it happen more and more until Chloe won't know how to watch, anymore.

"You look…God, you look beautiful, Chloe." Max finally pulls away enough to look at her and the blonde finally smiles. And waits for it. It takes all of ten seconds before blue eyes nearly comically widen.

"There she is." Chloe chuckles a little and Max is up in a whirlwind, running around the room like a hipster with its head cut off. Not really accomplishing anything. Just sort of freaking out. Chloe, the good fiancee she is, watches her, and loves her so much she can barely breathe. "Woah, Max-nado. Careful. Can't break a leg on our weddi-"

"We're getting married! We're getting married today and I'm-oh, God-Chloe! Chloe, you can make fun of me later, help me get dressed."

"No time for a qui-"

"Chloe!" Max snaps, a little frantic from the closet and Chloe helps her get untangled from her shirt, kisses her shoulder, and grabs the dress next to her. "Wait, pause-" Max turns around, tugging Chloe against her in the small little church closet, and kisses the everliving hell out of her. "I love you."

Chloe beams against her lips, not noticing as Max smoothes out the wrinkles she'd caused. "You better un-pause before we desecrate the church."

"Okay, un-pause."

"I love you, too." She doesn't return it until Max is dressed and breathing again-until they have a moment to themselves, searching eyes and smiling-and Chloe leans forward and gently kisses her, maybe a little nervous and excited and a little more _nervous_ again, their fingers tangling. "Let's go get hitched, Caulfield."

"Hey," Max looks like she's only cloud nine, teeth tucking the corner of her smile safely underneath teeth, "From now on, that's _Price_ to you."

 **M.P.**

She can't stop staring at the picture on the wall and she feels Chloe-feels her stiffen behind her-but doesn't move. It's ripped by the edges, wind doing nothing to push its paper past the staples.

She feels fingers in her hair.

Chloe's?

"I had a chance to meet her, once, didn't I." It's a breath, a realization, because she can feel it settle in her lungs, now. A world where Rachel was alive and Chloe was gone and she spent hours and hours clawing nails at a large metal storm door.

Hours spent, here, in that chair.

"What?" Chloe asks.

Max shakes her head.

"Nothing. I just..." A hint of something creeps up her throat, "Nothing."

"Max?"

Max doesn't turn away from the missing sign, wondering if Rachel would've wanted Max to save her, or if Chloe would've hated her for being the reason, now, that they're both still breathing and Rachel never will. Will Max let go from here and be back in that same chair, again? Chloe gone and the world, the _world_ -

She turns away from the picture and tugs her bag up a weary shoulder, eyes sunken and nose stained red.

"Nothing."

"Max." Chloe breathes, finger brushing under her nose, and Max tries not to lean into her hand.

 **.C.**

The boat is pretty fucking small, but it works. Even though neither one of them know...well, anything about sailing. Period. Which makes the first day of their honeymoon _hilarious_ until Chloe gets a black eye from getting whammed in the eye from the sail...thing.

It seemed like a pretty original honeymoon idea, at the time. Saying _fuck you_ to the world and setting sail on the high seas like pirates for a month, but they eventually concede and call _Victoria Chase_ , of all fucking people, to drive the damn thing (is it even called driving?) because her rich ass is the only person they know who randomly knows how to sail a boat. And Chloe's pretty sure stalks their facebook statuses since she's also the only person that replies to their feed update.

(When Chloe so casually mentions the stalking thing to Victoria she winds up with another black eye and a 'Oh, Gosh, _Lamefield_ - _the-second_ , did I forget to tell you to duck? Duck.')

Two days in Chloe has one healing black eye and one angry one, leaning over the small little sink-thing in the _boot_ (or whatever it's called) when she hears a flash. "Wha'" The toothbrush is hanging half out of her mouth and she's stripped down to her skivvies (kind of a fitting term for a boat), watching the world go a little topsy turvy as Max lowers her camera.

"Nothing," And Max's eyes are so light-so bright-even in the dim light of the small cabin-that the toothbrush sags a little from her mouth, eventually hanging limply. "That's just the first time you've used that and it's been half yours."

Chloe doesn't care about being nauseous or half-racoon or that Victoria Chase is on the top-deck, she tackles Max to the bed and makes the most of their second night off-shore because fuck it if she hasn't used her own toothbrush in forever, but now she's using _theirs_.

It's not until a week on the high seas that they get their sea legs, at all, because seasickness is a bitch, but Chase at least brought seasick patches with her and maybe Max and Chloe don't really bang the first week of their honeymoon (which sucks, because that's 90 percent of the point of having one) save for the second night, but Max has a thousand pictures of the ocean and the birds that sweep over it and learns how to sail a boat. And Chloe's always been her first mate, anyways, and somewhere out there on the waves, this subtle shift happens. The sun seems a little brighter and Max's smile seems to glint off of it, along with her ring, and Chloe stops mentally complaining about everything going wrong with their plan and starts enjoying it, instead.

Starts finding peace with the rocky waves and the way Max's fingers tangle in her hair and the way the ocean smells like salt and freedom. Eventually she goes from thinking that their failure as pirates was a _horrible fucking idea_ to never wanting to go back from it-to never wanting to turn away from the mistake, at all-and she thinks that's fitting.

That she'd take every black eye she got, if it lead them right to here.

And she never wants to go back.

But when they do, fingers tangled and rings settling against skin, they at least do it together.

 **M.P.**

"Max." Her eyes close as she feels the water sift around her like sand through an hourglass and when Max's eyelashes flutter, she looks across the pool to see her best friend looking at her, upside down, floating in streaks of blue.

"Yeah?"

Chloe crosses the distance between them, ripples cascading like falling sheets, rolling over her thighs and her clenching stomach and the red under her nose. Before long, Chloe is above her, hair stuck to her face and eyes serious and quiet. Different. Older.

Older…

 _Different._

"Do you know where we are?"

It's a blunt, serious question, and Max tugs her closer, not sure if this is a dream or reality or-

 _A moment._

She doesn't remember everything. Just fragments. Like an unspun VHS that's trying to wrap spools of broken black tape, tangling as it tries to complete itself, again. Complete here, again.

"No." She whispers, eyelashes fluttering underneath the drops of water falling from Chloe's chin, splattering against her cheek like warm paint. She tries-tries-mouth opening before she knows what she's saying, "Plan B."

"Plan B." Chloe murmurs, wet hand coming up to brush over her lips and Max breathes warm life against them. A finger dips down to skim along the circle around a neck and she wonders why her best friend sounds like she's so close to crying. "I think we're almost there. Somewhere, we're there, already, right? That's how it works. I think I'm almost there, and eventually you'll...you'll catch up. You're close. You're so close. I don't know how long we-"

"I'm so tired." Max breathes, but she doesn't close her eyes, because she wants to remember this, too. She wants to memorize the pained look that crosses Chloe's features, however messed up that is, and when Max's hand reaches up to cup a cheek, familiar fingers curve over a wrist, bringing her closer. Suddenly, the faint glowing lights of the pool are highlighting blue eyes and Max feels like she can barely breathe, because for a second-a split second-

"I know." Chloe nuzzles into her hand. "I know, I'm sorry, I-"

"Shut up and kiss me." Max's voice croaks. "Make a joke or anything, punch me in the shoulder, or _anything_ , but please just kiss me before we forget."

Chloe closes the distance without another word, kissing her like she knows every single twitch of her lips-kissing her like it's the golden hour and she's the sun and Max is this ocean she's wading in-and Max curves fingers in her shoulders while the world of blue and white and red fades around them.

"Stay strong, Max." She hears, their noses brushing, and Max doesn't open her eyes to see what greets her. She can't. "I'll _always_ have your back." A broken laugh. "Just because I can't remember, doesn't mean I don't-"

"I'll find you." Max insists, holding her like she might slip through her fingers. Because she will. "I'll find-"

 _You._

The water sloshes and Max opens her eyes, feeling faintly like she's lost something, feeling the water roll tides of faint rumbles against her hips.

"Max?" Chloe asks, looking at her curiously across the pool, wading towards her. "You alright? I wasn't serious about the whole otter rivalry thing, chill."

Max doesn't answer her-she just looks at her and wonders why she knows what she tastes like.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Unbearable Heaviness of Being.**

 _"…O Zarathustra, who you are and must become...how could this great destiny not be your greatest danger and sickness too?"_

Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

 **C.C.**

"Shh, Chloe, just go back to sleep." Her voice is soft and endless and warm and Chloe blearily blinks underneath the gentle weight of it, stretching, wondering how long she's been in catatonic state when she has half a forest of work to do. Maybe she stretches, but doesn't go far. Not with fingers so idly brushing through her hair, lulling her back into darkness like a lazy cat. She vaguely remembers having crawled into her wife's-still getting used to that, a year later-lap sometime around 5 pm and it looks like she hasn't left it, since.

"Wha' time is it?" It's barely a grumble and, after a few distracted seconds at her laptop, Max leans down to brush lips over her forehead, fingers still soothing circles against strands of blonde. Maybe their whole apartment is covered in polaroids, but most jobs are digital, these days, and Chloe has no doubt what Max is doing on that laptop. Editing lives to look perfect-priceless-or whatever the hell else they want.

"Just go back to sleep." Max repeats.

"B'...papers." She argues, because of the forest. There's a stack a mile or five high of _papers_ on their nightstand she has to go through, eyes already closing.

"I already went through them for you." Max says simply and when Chloe looks up, the photographer's smirking a little.

Chloe just keeps staring.

"Max, you don't know anything about the second law of thermodynamics."

"Exactly." Blue eyes flick back down, "So if they couldn't explain it, I put it in the stack that says _Makes no sense._ Sticky note and everything." She shrugs, smile spreading at a sleepy laugh beneath her. "I didn't grade them, or anything, and _man_ , I know you think I'm bad, but some of those kids in your class really don't know anything about science mumbo jumbo. And one of them definitely has a thing for you."

"How'd you get that from an essay?" She turns further into Max's lap, body only sagging further underneath fingers.

"It was covered in cologne."

"Classy. Must've been Ian, that guy _does_ have the hots for me." Her smile spreads a little against the familiar denim of jeans because she's pretty sure she can _hear_ Max roll her eyes. Her wife-yep, definitely never getting over that-won't hear shit about her not being good at her tentative position, so the usual self degrading sarcastic comments are out the window, replaced with quips about not sleeping with her students, instead (Chloe, obviously, still takes the eye rolls where she can get them). "You seriously sorted my essays by suckage for me?"

"You've been getting all of zero sleep, lately, so I did the bare bones in the marriage contract." Max shrugs, going back to her laptop and Chloe rolls over in her lap to watch the way blue hues play hide and seek on a concentrating face-watches the way Max's lips barely part and her tongue pokes out on the edge of her lips-and she knows, just knows, that they've both been getting zero sleep, lately. And she doesn't look away.

Her mom had pulled her aside at their joint bachelorette party over a year ago (like Chloe was going to miss the opportunity to watch Max turn red while shoving singles down g strings like a laughing hot tomato) and curled fingers around her wrist and Chloe can still remember the way she smiled.

 _It's the small moments_ , her mom had said then, both of their eyes watching a half-drunk Max so thoughtlessly smooth out the wrinkles out of her fiancee's coat across a dusty, smoke-filled bar. Joyce's eyes were kind of soft and sad and Chloe had swallowed and looked down at her shoes before looking up at Max and something about the way her mom's voice grated like gravel-like a cigarette being stamped out by her heel-haunted her.

 _It's the small moments that will stick with you, Chloe. They always stick with you._

"I really love you."

Max pauses, again, and looks down at her with that soft smile and kind, tired eyes, and hues of blue lighting up her cheeks like the glass of lights hanging on a Christmas tree, "You better," shifting so that Chloe can rest a little better in her lap-she knows that's why she moves, just knows it-so she shifts and she settles, and she forgets all about the shit-load of work left she has to do.

Because it's the small things that will stick with her.

"Go back to sleep, Chlo."

Always.

Smiling and content, she does.

 **M.P.**

A lamp. A scream-not hers-a bullet.

Dark hair. Dark eyes.

Max tells him where the scissors are and tries to focus-tries to breathe-and she can barely rewind, anymore. It's not the drugs.

 _Be strong. Be strong. Be strong._

She stumbles out of the chair and strong hands curl around the necklace. It breaks-snaps off-and she whimpers as she curls around it on the floor, holding it delicately in her palm. She tries to rewind. To fix it. But she can't fix this, either.

It takes a lifetime, blood dripping from her nose onto the floor, and Jefferson's standing over her when she fixes it. When the ring tightens a noose around her neck, finger thoughtlessly pushing through it, the smallest hint of relief in her chest.

"Wh-how did you get over-"

Max pulls out the picture from her pocket, always tucked just in case, and stains it with red.

 **C.C**

For once Max is actually doing a shoot in the city somewhere Chloe can walk without having to jumpstart her car a dozen times and she's leaning against a tree, hands shoved in the pockets of her blazer as she watches her.

No matter how many times Max talks about it, she never really saw the beauty in photography unless Max was taking the pictures, but _man_ can her wife make it look like art. Not just the pictures, but the act of taking them. She moves like a dancer, sometimes, the way she tilts the camera just a little up to catch a hint of light bathing the slope of a nose; she dips like an artist's brush as she paints the snapshot of space between two models; she soothes catharsis like a singer the way she makes them laugh in order to catch the hint of a smile with the quick flick of a finger.

It's not rare that Chloe gets to watch Max watch or people-it's not rare that Chloe gets to watch Max take pictures-but it is rare that she gets to see her in her element at actual work.

It's pretty fucking awesome.

Eventually it's a 'wrap'-people actually really _do_ say that in the business, go fucking figure, Max wasn't just always being a nerd-and Max looks a little surprised when she catches sight of Chloe out of the sight of her eye. It's not until ten minutes later, helping pack Max up as the brunette waves goodbye to one of the models, that she catches the sun glinting off a ring hanging around her neck.

Max follows her gaze-sees her quirking eyebrow-but doesn't move to put it on her finger and Chloe tries to swallow down her immediate reaction of... _something_ because hers has never left her hand for a second.

"What, worried people will see it so that you can't hit on all the hot lady models?" Chloe, however, isn't about to let it slide.

"No, you dork." Max actually has the gall to roll her eyes. Chloe no longer wants to take them where she can get them. "I…" She sighs and steps closer, voice quieter, "I just want it close, okay?" It's a serious, quiet statement, and Max must be able to tell Chloe's still a little annoyed because she immediately follows up with: "Always. No matter what time I'm in-even if I jump or I accidentally jump, or...or whatever-I want it right here. I'm not taking it off for a second."

"Wouldn't that work on your finger?" Chloe gives her a still-skeptical look.

"Not when I have to take it off to take pictures because it might catch the sunlight. Or do the dishes. Because, you know. I'm the only one that does them."

"Whatever you say, Max." The blonde grumbles, not quite buying it.

"Look, I…" She catches the lapel of a dark jacket and tugs her back close, "I know I haven't been... _all here_ , lately." Max looks away like she's ashamed or scared or both and Chloe's fingers gently tuck up her chin. "I know I've been getting headaches and everything feels so...far away. Sometimes I...sometimes I wake up, Chlo, and I can't remember when I am." It's barely a whisper and Chloe almost doesn't hear it over the constantly moving city, the world shifting and changing and always, always _going_ around them. Past them. Chloe steps closer, swallowing the lump and the fear in her throat and Max finally meets her eyes, because it's the most Max has admitted. The most fear she's confirmed. "It's the only thing that feels real, sometimes. That I can hold onto and-and-"

-and now Chloe feels like an ass for being annoyed.

"Well if that's the case," Chloe cuts her off, because she doesn't want Max to look like this. She doesn't want Max to look so lost and scared. "I guess you could just tell all the hot lady models to shove it because you're taken."

"Not that they're interested." It's relief, clear as day, that she's let it go. "You know, like, ever. But if they were, I would."

"Not interested? Have they seen your ass?"

"Chloe." Max laughs and there it is-that beautiful sound that makes her eyes light up.

"I'm just saying," Chloe gives it a squeeze for good measure, the soft noise that leaves Max's lips worth it as she tugs her close, their bodies molding in the middle of a crowded street, lost to the universe and everything in it. Moving. Moving. It seems poignant, somehow, to know that everything-all of time-is on the same line, and that they're right here, together. Moving forward, together. "They don't know what they're missing."

"I could always rewind and find out." Max quips and it's Chloe's turn to punch her shoulder because there isn't a hint of a straying bone in the brunette's body and they both know it. "Lucky for you, I've got a thing for teaching assistants."

"Well you better upgrade it to full-blown professor status, soon." Teeth tug at a red lip, eyebrows nervously raising in a twitch that she knows Max immediately spots, because the girl is freakishly intuitive. She couldn't hide a shit stain or a rainbow from Max if she tried-Max, whose smile is slow and spreading, eyes light.

"What?"

"I guess I did alright with those classes last semester, because I start next Fa-" Chloe doesn't even get to finish because Max practically squeals and throws her arms around her neck, kissing her without a care in the world.

The ring around Max's neck glints in the sunlight.

 **M.P**

The room is bright and dark eyes are concerned and this time Max doesn't nearly knock over the endtable when she opens her eyes and focuses. The white light dances off the shadows of Kate's face like the most beautiful kind of contrasts and Max wishes she could take a thousand pictures of the slope of her smile, just because she knows after this she'll never see it again.

She knows, after this, she'll never see any of this, again.

"Max, are you okay?" Kate gently asks, shifting her hospital chair closer. "We were just talking about the book and you-"

"Honestly, Kate?" Max asks and she doesn't have to reach up to her neck to feel the ring hanging there, reassuring her. Not anymore. Not anymore, because she's here. She's finally here.

And she **remembers.** Not everything, but Chloe, breath gasping against her palm, clinging to her shoulders.

 _Go bac-_

"Not even close."

 **C.P**

Turns out they make it through the 'puppy dog newlyweds' phase everyone keeps warning both of them about, and they're still fine. They're still going strong just like her old busted down baby parked down the street. They're still them, and they never really listened to anyone else, before, anyways.

The world still feels heavy and unbearable, sometimes, but every morning she wakes up and Max is lying right next to her, one leg so thoughtlessly draped over her knees and she feels like it's not all a horrible fuck-hole, despite the papers and _Vanessa_ and bills, and maybe that's what marriage really is. Helping each other through each other's shit.

And how shit and time both fly.

"It would've been Rachel's birthday, today." Chloe murmurs, thumb running along the material of a bracelet she never got rid of and Max looks at her like she knows-because she always fucking knows-and all Max does is sit on the edge of her chair and kiss her brow and hold her hand. They don't talk-they don't have to-and when Chloe tugs her to bed, Max wraps around her like the warmest kind of big spoon, their rings interlocking when their fingers tangle.

"I love you." Max whispers, kissing the shell of her ear, and Chloe falls asleep on her like they're watching a movie, their fingers not once breaking apart, even when her free hand traces the lining of initials buried under rocks of a city she never loved on a heart.

And it all unravels more and more, no matter how much stronger they come together-like wet, fraying knots being tugged on both ends.

A month later, Max stares out of the window until Chloe shakes her, and then she stares some more. She stares until Chloe cups her cheeks and panics and falls to her knees _begging_ her, and then Max snaps back like the hammer of a gun, eyes blank shells, hand immediately snapping up between them like she's catching bullets and rewinding time, _trembling_.

"...Chloe?" She asks and _cries_ and Chloe shakily pulls her into her arms, burying lips and false assurances against her temple. "I thought-I thought-"

"I'm here. It's okay, I'm right-"

" _I'm so tired._ " Max whispers in her ear and Chloe doesn't understand why the sentence pierces through her lungs like a knife. Because Max always tells her she's fine. Max always lies and smiles and she remembers what the brunette sounded like years ago-

 _I kill everyone I love-_

And she never should've quit smoking, Chloe selfishly thinks, because it's not Max that's watching Chloe slip through her fingers, it's Chloe watching Max. Because Vanessa is getting worse and worse and _Max_ is getting worse and worse and Chloe tries to unravel the secrets of time like _she_ has a life to save, for once, because some horrible, sinking feeling in her chest tells her that she _does_.

Because, three months later, for the first time, it happens twice in one night. Her copy of _Zarathustra_ is knocked over on the edge of the bed, splayed open, as Chloe carries Max to the bed and she thinks, for one split-second (stupid peaceful fucking split-second) moment, that the brunette just finally fell asleep until she catches the sight of unseeing, open eyes. And Max is gone.

Max, for this moment in time, is _gone_.

Max _goes_ somewhere Chloe can't reach her, can't grab her and pull her back because her right hand doesn't fucking _do_ that like Max's does, and Chloe shakes her and shakes her.

She shakes her and shakes her and shakes her.

She shakes her until it's her own fingers that are shaking, because there's no response.

"Max." She begs, but her wife doesn't jerk. Doesn't stir. Doesn't gently shove her shoulder or cup her cheek or kiss the edge of her jaw. _"Max_." Doesn't blink. Doesn't laugh. Doesn't cry. "I'm losing you." Chloe breathes, searching blue eyes, finally voicing it, chest clogged with tears and breath she can't release. Clogged with a lifetime of memories she can't move on from. And those empty, unseeing blue eyes don't blink. "I'm losing you and I can't do anything about it. This isn't fucking fair."

Desperate fingers cup cheeks like she's trying to keep Max here while she can.

"I'm watching you fucking slip away Max, and how's that for fair, huh? That you made me think the whole _happy ending_ thing was real, and you're just-you keep leaving me and you-you're going to-unless I do something...unless I-Max, I can't-"

Hospital. She should take her to a hospital like a normal fucking-

"Chloe?" It's faint and confused, blue eyes blinking away glass and confusion, slowly focusing back on the pained features above her. Her hands raise up to curve around fingers about a cheek. And there she is. There's Max. There's fucking Super Max, back from the future or the past or...somewhere. "Where are-what's wrong?"

Chloe laughs, breathless and broken through the tears falling down from red-rimmed eyes, water splattering on Max's pale cheeks like the brunette's blood stained their hardwood floors and the open pages of a book when she carried her to the bed. Like how the rain stained Max's cheeks with a tornado not even a mile away.

"Chloe, what's wrong?" Max repeats, tugging her down, obviously not even aware of the past whole fucking hour, her fingers curling into tense shoulders, one hand moving up to cup the back of her head. Legs wrap around her waist and the warmth Chloe feels against her cheek smells like Max and blood smearing from a nose against her skin. Max tries to hold her and she can't do it tight enough. "Ch-"

Instead of answering, Chloe gathers Max up in her arms and holds her so close to her chest that she might compress diamonds out of their lungs. She might bury herself here in Max's neck and she can't stop crying.

"Chloe," Max thoughtlessly soothes, her voice cracking- _you cry, I cry, Jack_ -and Chloe fucking _bawls_ into her neck.

She gets it, now. She gets why Max always checks for her pulse and always jumps when cars backfire and always tries to catch sight of her in the corner of mirrors. She gets why Max looked so wrecked when they first met and why she still looks so wrecked, now, and why her heart feels like it's _tearing_.

"Max." Chloe begs even though she knows Max doesn't understand-but some Max might, "Please. _Please._ "

They haven't been apart for almost a decade, not a single fucking night, and she doesn't know why she feels like she's running out of time _._

 **M.P**

"Can I tell you something crazy?" Eyes close.

"You? Anytime, Max. Anything. No crazy talk here." Kate immediately replies and Max's knuckles are white she grips the chair so hard. They match the decor of the too-bright hospital and the glint of the sunlight off of Kate's hair and she's so nauseous she can barely breathe. "Um...in the psych ward." It's barely a mumbled, sheepish kind of shrug added to the end and Max is thankful for it.

Thankful for Kate.

"I'm stuck in this...this giant loop, Kate. This giant, messed up loop, and I can't stop it." Max explains, tired as she sinks in the chair, blinking back exhaustion and moisture. "I...I had this...dream," She settles on, "Where I watched my best friend get shot and no matter what I did, or no matter how I tried, I couldn't save her. Eventually, when I realized I could, I found out that I had to let a lot of people die in order to save her. A lot of...really important, _good_ people."

Like Kate. Like _**Kate.**_

Kate, who shifts and agrees and doesn't know, "Oh. That sounds like...a really bad dream, Max."

"It's a really, really bad dream. That I can't-" Fingers run over her temple and she doesn't even hear her get up-doesn't even notice she's close until fingers brush the blood out from underneath her nose. Mumbling as she thoughtlessly finishes, eyes fluttering open to see caring hazel close and kind, "...wake up from. It's like I...had a dream that I woke up from the nightmare but I can't remember all of it. I remember losing her, too, and I remember that I have to get back to her. I remember she told me to get back to her, but I don't-I can't-" Her voice trembles and her head sears and she's so tired. "I don't know how to get out."

"I...I know that feeling pretty well, Max." Kate shifts a little, then, uncomfortable. Max can see it in the way her shoulders slump and her fingers curl together like nervous knots in the tissue she's using to wipe blood from under her nose. "I know what it's like to be stuck somewhere and you...you feel like no one cares or like there's no way out and...there always is. You taught me that, yesterday."

Max swallows, shakily, and looks away.

"God…" Kate shakes her head and lifts back up the stained tissue, gently wiping away red, "God asked Abraham for a sacrifice-for the greatest sacrifice, for the person who was dearest and most...precious to his heart-so he tied his son Isaac to the altar. He faltered and strayed but ultimately decided to do it-to prove his faith to God-and right before he killed him, God told him that it was enough. It was just the...the spiritual sacrifice of his son that God wanted. He wanted Abraham to let his son go." Kate tells her, ripping off a nearby bit of napkin to finish wiping away the blood. "I...I know you didn't ask, and I'm not trying to preach or anything, but you actually reminded me of that on top of the building, yesterday. Most people think that God was being cruel, asking Abraham to give up his son, but I...always thought it was different. I always thought it was God reminding Abraham that he wasn't like the other Gods people worshipped-that he would never ask him to truly do it." Kate shakes her head, setting the napkin on the table, hands tenting on bent knees on the floor, looking up at Max with bright eyes from a white, nearly translucent floor, "That he could let go of all of his worldly struggles. All of the things in the world aren't important and sometimes, in order to remember what's important, what's really there, you have to let it go." Kate sums up. "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will-"

"Give you rest." Max quietly finishes for her, sharing a soft smile at Kate's surprised, wide one.

"You still remember."

"Yeah. I could never forget."

It doesn't feel like yesterday, because it wasn't, but Max still remembers. She'll always remember.

"You can't rest until you let go. No one can. Maybe you're not really stuck, Max, you just need to let go and realize the only one keeping you from going forward is you. You'll find whatever-whoever-you're looking for, if you stop looking for it and realize it's right there. God- _whatever_ you believe-it's right there."

This time Max doesn't cry. This time Max just moves down to sit on the floor with Kate and squeezes her hand.

"You're a...really, really good person, Kate." Max tells her and Kate smiles. "I'm really glad you didn't jump." She tells her, again. She'll tell her everytime she can, but Max has a feeling this will be the last.

"Thanks, Max." She hugs her. "Me, too."

And Max, holding Kate tightly against her chest, nose burying in her neck in a whispered breath of a murmur against her shoulder, with Chloe across a sea of hospital white that she can't cross, clings to Kate-to this-for only a moment…

Only a moment.

And then lets go.

 **C.C.**

"We have to take you to the fucking _doctor,_ Ma-"

"Chloe, no." Max is shaking her head, packing up their weekend bag to do the monthly tour of Seattle. From the looks of the messages on Max's phone, their last tour. The farewell tour. And Chloe can see how stressed she is-can see how the years are taking their toll on a small frame like meat hanging on a butcher's hook for centuries-but Chloe doesn't care about Vanessa. She doesn't care about Max's parents or their jobs or the end of the world, she cares about the woman standing in front of her.

She cares about the fact that Max is so pale that she's practically fluorescent-she cares about the fact that Max hasn't been able to eat in a week-she cares about the fact that half the time their eyes meet, Chloe isn't even sure Max is there. She has stacks of equations and proofs that are nearly solved in her office-she has lines painted in red on her walls and lines _stained_ in red on their floors-and a theory of _repeat_ that won't do them any good-and Chloe swears to God, if Max says she's _fine_ one more-

"I'm f-."

"For fuck's-" Chloe's voice booms through their small apartment and she can see shoulders tighten across the room, Max weakly shoving another set of clothes into a bag. "Stop. Stop trying to pull that shit."

"Chloe." Hands push up into dark hair before she turns around, wrist pushing underneath her nose, taking blood with it and Chloe still holds onto the anger because it's the only thing she's got. The only defense-the only sense of reason-she has left.

"You're not fine!" It feels like a hotel room a lifetime before when a plate shatters against their floor. "You're killing yourself!"

"I'm not-"

"You're _killing_ yourself! Would you just let me take you to a fucking-"

"And what?" Max's voice challenges her right back, smaller than their small apartment with her small shoulders and the small way her fingers tremble. Small Max against the big bad fucking world. But Max shouldn't look like this, because Max-her fingers aren't small. Max's hands are deceiving because she holds the power of gods in the scratch of her nails. She builds armies in the wrinkles of her skin and can burn the world with her callouses. Max raises her deceiving, _great_ hand and says _stop_ and the world listens, because Chloe's world is wrapped up in the pale skin stretching over knuckles and she's fucking _furious_.

Because Max will stop the world for everyone but herself.

"-what do you want me to do, Chloe? My mom's _dying_."

"Your mom's been dying for years!" Chloe wants to break another plate, but moves around their couch, instead. The look on Max's face makes her breath painfully catch in a bull's snarl out of her nostrils, "Fuck-shit, yeah, okay, not how I meant it to sound, but you know what I mean. _You're_ -"

And she pauses, then. Because she can't say it.

"What, dying?" Max snaps, hand slamming the lid of a bag a little too hard, the duffle spilling onto the ground, but Chloe could care less. Since that duffle's going to the _hospital_ , and her chest is so tight at the thought of Max having anything to do with-no.

Not if they get to the hospital. Not if she can _stop_ it.

"We don't know what you are, since you won't go to the hospital." She says, instead.

"And, what, we're going to explain that I'm an ex time-traveler that went through a pre-college phase-" Max kicks the bag, but it isn't out of anger, and it's while she tries to pick it up that Chloe comes up behind her. "Who might be going back in time, or might just be pulling a Courtney Love-who knows?-that wakes up sometimes and has no idea where she is? That she blanks out for hours at a time? That she doesn't _remember_ things anymore? That she's pretty sure she's just going _crazy_ -"

"Max." Chloe's teeth grit.

"That'll go over just great. Oh, no, doctor, I _know_ I went back in time because my wife's not dead and my hometown was destroyed, like, ten years ago, and I used to get these wicked nose bleeds _then_ , so either time's unraveling or my brain's fucked-"

"Max." Chloe's hand reaches up to cup her shoulder, whirling Max around because she's still furious but she can hear the crack in a familiar voice. And sure enough, there's the tears. Here isn't Super Max.

Here's her Max.

Max who _is_ small, sometimes, and can fit against her chest like she was molded to be there.

"So why don't you just go ahead and lock me in the psych ward while my mom dies because my wife can't wait a fucking weekend to-"

"Max." Chloe whispers, because the blood is still there, right underneath Max's nose, finger raising up to wipe it away, jaw set and eyes desperate. "You have to go to the doctor."

"My mom-" And Max's eyes shift a little, then. There's something quiet and understanding behind seas of blue and Chloe remembers their first week on their honeymoon-looking at the seas like dumbasses who thought they could master them.

Maybe Chloe thought she understood Max's eyes until this moment.

"We both know what they'll say. Maybe we'll…woah..." Max whispers, voice cracking, and her body loses its weight at the knees. Chloe bends down to catch her before she can hit the wood, arms wrapping around a familiar waist as they slide to the floor. Red stains ivory and Max is still here. She can see it in her eyes as Max's body sags against her. She tucks her wife back against her and Max lets her. Max just lays back against Chloe like she's a sack of bricks, eyes blinking to try to focus on the ceiling, and they're both sprawled out on wood in a pile of clothes underneath a mural of polaroids and a backdrop of a golden hour of smeared red on a wall.

"You're not fine, Max." It's quiet in their apartment that suddenly feels too large, arms tenting over a stomach.

Max's hand gently raises up to trace the line of Chloe's jaw, her brows knitting, and Chloe knows what she's asking her. Chloe knows she's telling Max to choose herself. To let her mom go when Chloe couldn't do the same, years ago, and made Max make the choice for her. Knows she's telling her to be a stronger person than she's ever been, herself.

Max ran back into a town to save everything in Chloe's life. But Chloe?

Chloe doesn't know what to do but to beg Max to save herself.

"I know." Max admits, those swimming blue eyes closing, and she's still crying. Chloe's crying, too, though, catching the hand tracing her cheek and kissing a finger where a ring should be.

"I love you." It breaks in the air between them, breaks against those deceivingly small fingers, and Max opens her eyes, then, face crumpling.

"I know." A beat, Max squeezing her hand.

There's the longest moment of silence in their lives.

"Ma-"

"I'll make an appointment for Friday." It's a nearly resigned breath from Max's lips.

"God, thank you, finally. Was that so hard? And you call me a stubborn ass."

"You are a total stubborn ass."

"Takes one to know one, donkey." Chloe leans down and kisses her and she's glad Max doesn't call her on the fact that they're both still crying, promising against her lips, "We'll still catch the flight to Seattle Saturday."

"You promise?" Her eyes are nearly begging and irrevocably guilty in a way that makes Chloe's mouth dry, not sure why it tastes like salt on her tongue when she immediately responds.

"Promise. Bet on my life, Price."

They never do.

 **M.P.**

"Max?" Her voice is familiar and Max stumbles into it, hand lowering, eyes blinking to focus on a confused pair of blues. There's two circles of light from a polaroid Warren- _Warren_ -just took, her old friend drunkenly stumbling down the path, solo cup held up in his hand like a general's sword. Warren, she remembers. The party.

God, her head-

Nausea. Unsettling, quaking earth, cheering and laughter and music-

Warren.

Warren, who went on to become a teacher at a local high school and still sent her messages over Facebook every blue moon. Warren, who never grew out of his knack for cheesy ties and was at their wedding and awkwardly shuffled around Victoria like they were still in high school.

Warren and…

Max's head slowly turns around to face her. Blue and blue and blue with swirls of red on her arm and in tear-soaked eyes and-Chloe.

Chloe's hand lowers from her head the same time Max's does, looking a little confused and tired, fingers pressing against temples like her head is searing, and an immediate look of understanding crosses Max's features, stepping forward to gently curve fingers around wrists, catching sight of a ring glinting underneath double-moons.

The ring, for once, isn't hers.

"Chloe." She whispers in her ear. Oh, _Chloe_.

"Max? My head...it feels, it feels like I-"

"I know." And, man, she does. Her headache's never left. "We'll make it."

"What? What do you mean we'll-ah, shit _fuckballs_ my head feels like-where-where are w-"

"Plan B." Max supplies, for once, hand raising from a wrist to cup a cheek, her own shoulders sagging.

"Plan-" Blue eyes widen and she looks so frightened that all Max can do is hold onto her.

Chloe doesn't remember. Not yet.

 _I'll go backwards, I think, and you'll-_

"You'll remember, soon. Just...just know it works. That you're right." Max thinks she was right, anyways. She'll find out, soon. "I think." She can feel it. Can feel all the weathered pieces of a picture creating a single polaroid. "I had to go back. You told me I had to go back and-"

Her head pounds and aches and she can barely focus.

And maybe next time they'll be better at planning _this._

" _Max, I-_ "

Blue eyes blink and the hint of recognition-of fear and panic and pain-is replaced with pure fury. With something young and memorable. Something that blinks at the feeling of hands cupping her cheeks and looks just as lost, for a second, before features tighten into steel.

It's a blink, and the ring's gone.

Max might laugh if all of it wasn't so seriously messed up. But she doesn't have time. She's never really _had_ time. A storm is still coming. Chloe is still dying. The world is still tearing itself apart.

And Max has no guarantee she won't forget, again, too.

"Look, Chloe, I know you're pissed-and you've got a right to be-but right now, I need you to listen to me. I don't have long until I...I don't know. I don't know where I'm gonna wind up." At the end, she hopes. Or the start. "It wasn't Nathan-"

"What the hell are you talking about? Why are you-what's-"

But Chloe doesn't move Max's hands from her cheeks and Max wonders where she's fast-forwarded from. She's moved so much along this line of time that she isn't even sure if the line is on its head, anymore. She wonders what this Chloe has seen. What every Chloe has seen. She wonders which Chloe they've created and torn apart and ripped to shreds and she loves her so much she has to blink through the tears and swallow down the apology in her throat.

"I need you to trust me. Okay? Just tr-"

And then she hears two voices. There's two moons hanging in the sky and two Chloe's standing before her, in the same spot. Like she's rewound and gone forward at the same time, but only for a moment. Only for a breath. Two hands making two different gestures and...one Max.

One Max that moves a little backwards and looks at her hands while the other looks up and-

And what the _fuck is wrong with her?_

"Max?"

Her head feels like it's gliding on angel wings, soaring above an ocean of endless sunsets and the twinkling glisten of Chloe's sad smile.

Max blinks and sees the ring. Blinks and doesn't. Blinks and feels the world quiver and suddenly feels like she can't breathe. Like she's fading-like Marty McFly watching his parents never get together-like she's a speck of dust Chloe's breath has dispersed into thousands of atoms comprising one, quivering-legged girl with knocking knees.

"Max?"

She's on the ground and she has no idea when she got here, hand shakily raising up to her nose, trembling. Red.

" _ **Max.**_ "

"We'll make it?" She whispers to the ground between them, chest tight and pounding and eyes a little unfocused. This is weird. This is different. She can't focus and...and the air feels heavy. The air feels different and thick. No, no, things aren't supposed to be coming _apart_. They're supposed to be coming together. She's coming apart. She's coming apar-

"We'll-"

 **Let go.**

 _They're always supposed to come apart._

 **Let go.**

Faint memories of a life she might be remembering in the back of her mind, hand raising up to ward off the pain. It's like a word on the edge of her tongue. Like a taste on the edge of her lips-cigarettes and gum and summertime and ink-and a scent lingering on her own skin.

Brows knit and the world shakes and she knows a tornado like the quake of God towering over Abraham is in the distance, just waiting, as Max looks up to take in the sight of Chloe, standing above her, two moons highlighting the dark brown sheen of a jacket still stained with dirt from a junkyard grave. And for a moment, the pain that's been pressing on the back of her temples for...for so long, is just...gone.

And everything feels clear.

"Max? What the hell?" Chloe kneels down in front of her and Max's hand raises, blood skimming along a lip like she's trailing lipstick along parted breath.

"Chloe."

Kate. Victoria. The storm. It's quiet, out here, but she can _feel_ it. And there's just this...peace. A moment of quiet, before the huge fucking storm. Quiet like how Chloe's hair looked in front of her eyes before they left. Quiet like how her fingers skimmed along the edge of her neck. Quiet like how their bodies settled in the bed.

Eyelashes flutter.

"Shit, okay, we can do whatever you want, just-"

"We did it." It's a hint of a broken laugh, because she knows the worst is yet to come. "I remember." Because she remembers _all_ of it, still. All of where she came from. She's herself. She's finally Maxine fucking _Price_ and…

And she remembers. And she doesn't just remember, she _**is.**_

And just like that, her mind fills in the worst gap of them all.

"I'll lose you."

The world is quiet around them, the air still and peaceful and Max's eyes snap open in horror, chin trembling.

"I'll _**lose**_ _-"_

And then the real pain comes.

 **C.C.**

It's different, this time, Chloe can tell. She can tell the instant it happens.

They're in the middle of their apartment, the sunlight playing a nice game of _stop & go _with the blinds, the wind gentle and breeze calm. It doesn't matter how much money either of them make (not that Chloe makes much, but they're doing a lot better off than they used to be, lifetimes away, when they lived off of takeouts and truck rust) their air conditioners never seem to work. Or maybe that's just New York. It's always been New York.

That same ratty blanket is wrapped around them and Max has leaned back to take a selfie that Chloe naturally fills half of, arm snaking around her waist to hold her close, lips brushing over a shoulder. Even in the shittiest moments, they can do this-can find this sliver of peace-and it's just that. A sliver. A lifetime of slivers that make a whole.

She never really understands that, in this tick off the arrow of time, that this will be the last one.

Thursday.

There's barely a second after it's snapped where the world feels still-where Max feels deathly still-and then all of the air is sucked up out of the room and she feels her. She feels it. Max tenses like a quaking bungie cord strapped so thin it might snap.

"Chloe!" It rips out of Max's throat and she turns around. It's a frantic noise that Chloe hasn't heard in over half a decade, now. Because this is different than Max waking up from a nightmare. This is different than Max zoning out. This is-no.

No.

"Max?" Chloe's arm wraps around her, voice strangling because Max's eyes are wide-frantic-but _determined_ and the blood underneath her nose looks like warpaint. "That kind of yell sounds a lot like old, freaking out you. Please tell me you didn't-"

"We have to leave." Max immediately says, scrambling to stand from the bed. "We have to leave right now."

"Woah, woah, Max- _Max_. Slow down. Hey, hey-" Chloe stumbles up behind her, trying to tug her back into her arms, swallowing down fear and worry and weak, pavlovian anger at the tears. "Try talking to me first."

"You have to trust me, Chloe." Max shakes her head. "I can't tell you, if I tell you, you-"

"That's a shit card to play, Price." Chloe frowns. And her heart feels like ice. Like it's frozen over and her breath is cold and her fingers are cold and Max- "...you did. You rewound. You-"

"I can't tell you. Don't ask me to tell yo-"

"No. No, you promised. We promised. No more fucking with time travel, Max. Not until I could-"

"We don't have time for this, Chloe." Max's voice is desperate-strangled-and warm fingers cup Chloe's cheeks, pulling her close until their foreheads slot. "We need to go."

"What happens? Max, you're moving a thousand miles per minute, here, and I-"

"Chloe, _please_." Her wife's voice cracks and breaks and suddenly her mouth is dry.

"Why did you rewind? Why did-how many times have you come back to right now?" She asks. "How many times have you-"

"You die." Max's voice is strangled.

"What?"

She'd really, really hoped they left all this dying stuff in Arcadia Bay and no matter how many times she hears Max say it, it always, _always_ just...sucks.

"Tomorrow. It's like Arcadia fucking Bay all over again. I can't-I can't-"

"How do I-what? Shit, Max-"

Chloe finally lowers the hand from Max's nose to see that it's still coming. She's still bleeding. Max is still bleeding.

"I can't stop it. I can't-No matter what I do. I tell you, you die. I don't tell you, you die. We don't go anywhere _near_ it, you die. So maybe if I get you...maybe if we go further this time. Maybe if we-" She's ripping away from her to grab a worn, tattered old journal from a box like she _needs_ it. Like how Chloe used to watch David strap a gun to his hip. How many times has Max- "We have to go. Please, we have to go. Maybe we'll get out of the city, this time and you'll-you'll-" Max is crying so hard, raising her hand up in an obviously broken vow. Chloe catches her hand because the blood won't _stop_ and she can't let her go back. Not like this.

She can't let her go back, period. Not knowing what she knows.

"Chloe." It's a snapped, broken argument, desperate and shaking and the blood is still coming. Max is a blood faucet and Chloe is going to die tomorrow and they're running out of time.

"Max, you're still bleeding. You're not okay. You're not-you have to take a break. I'll be fine, we just-"

"I won't remember. And you have to do everything you can. You have to stay alive. Please. We have to go-we have to-I won't-I have to save-" Before Max can finish the thought, her body pitches forward. She fucking _passes out_ and Chloe's never called an ambulance so fast in her life.

And from there? From that messed up moment? Life cranks up into hyper-drive. it happens so fast. It all happens so fast. Carrying Max down to the street like a wounded angel. The ambulance. The hospital. Nurses and paramedics and two doors she can't push past.

Fast.

But not the waiting. She could care less about dying tomorrow when she's stuck in a waiting room with her hands clasped on her knees, eyes red and throat thick. A lifetime later, she's nearly knocking over the waiting room chair to meet the doctor and _then_.

Then is when Chloe feels like the world is ending, because she thought they had more time.

Fucking _friday_ should've been _years_ ago and it's so anticlimactic she wants to scream. She wants to shoot something. She wants to punch the doctor out and _scream_.

Fast.

The doctor tells her Max doesn't have long. That her head is so many kinds of fucked up and in the _process_ of hemorrhaging that he's amazed Max is still here. And that's just it. That's all he has. No solutions. No suggestions. No medicine or cures or saving graces. Just _you're fucked and we don't know why_ and Max just listens through all of it like she knew.

Like she knew all along, like it was just a matter of time, and Chloe _hates her_.

Chloe doesn't leave her side for a second, crying at her knees because what kind of world _does this_ -

And when Max wakes up, her wife remembers nothing at all, because she never does, after she rewinds.

"Chloe?" She groggily asks, hand raising up to her temple. "God, did someone knock me out? My head feels-"

"Shh, Max. Save it, you need to rest." Chloe tangles their hands.

"Where are w-" Max's other hand raises up to her neck and finds the ring swaying like a protective dreamcatcher above her heart. Like she isn't remembering where she is, but when. It's a look Chloe recognizes, now. "Oh."

"Do you remember what you told me? Before you passed out?" Chloe gently prods and after a long moment, Max weakly shakes her head and the blonde thanks whatever the hell God there is up there fucking their lives up. Because small favors. "Do you remember what the doctor said?" Max tenses but, miraculously, nods.

"Yeah, I...I think I-wow." Her head falls back to the pillow. "Can we not go through the telling my parents this this, part? Not until..." Max's eyes close, and when she's quiet for long, Chloe wonders if Max knows this, too. If Max knows more about life than Chloe ever has.

Chloe doesn't answer. She just kisses her wrist. Her palm. The edge of her finger. Breathes her in like it might be the last time.

But instead of being angry, for once, instead of clinging to that _wanting to punch and scream and shoot_ thing, Chloe gently tucks up Max's hand and kisses her knuckles until she feels the muscles relax, being here for her, instead. Because she's running out of time. They both are.

How fucking ironic.

How fucking...life. Science.

And at the end of it all, at the end of moving too fast and too slow and watching Max's chest rise and fall in a bed that isn't theirs, Chloe finds a sense of resolve and peace. A sense of calm before the storm-a sense of love in her fate. She looks like Max did, on top of that cliff years ago, ripping up a picture, and...understands.

She understands.

And she lets go.

The moment Max can move, Chloe moves to help her out of the bed and disconnect her, guiding her towards the college, and Max never asks why.

"It's not over. Is it." Is all Max says, sounding exhausted and barely standing. Chloe lifts Max up into her arms after wrapping her in a too-large jacket, carrying her bridal style like it's their honeymoon all over again and doesn't stop.

"It will be, soon."


	8. Chapter 8

_Note:_ Unfortunately, this chapter is being posted before I'm going away for two weeks. I figured it would be better to post it _before_ , rather than after. Coincidentally, it is also the longest chapter, and the one with the most pseudo-science. I'm well aware that this chapter will likely anger many, and will cause more questions than answers, but we have one more chapter after this, and I just want to take the time to thank all of you for sticking through it with us. I'd love to hear what you have to say! I can honestly say I'd do it all again ;) ...for science.

 **Moment.**

" _Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselves too; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times, and all things with us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a great year; which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and again so that it may run down and run out again; and all these years are alike in what is greatest as in what is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every great year, in what is greatest as in what is smallest."_

Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

 **C.C**

"Chloe?" Max grumbles from her shoulder, barely awake and Chloe swallows down sandpaper as she flicks on the lights. "Why are we-is this your...are we in your classroom?"

"Bingo."

"Why?" Chloe sets her down on top of her desk, lips brushing over her forehead.

"Remember how I told you I'd explain everything to you once I figured it out? All of that _science mumbo jumbo_ that never made any fucking sense?"

"Yeah." Max shifts to weakly lean up on her elbows. "And you feel like you've gotta do this now?" There's a bandage wrapped around her head, barely obscuring familiar blue eyes, but when Chloe's serious gaze meets Max's the other woman immediately sits up. Imperceivably nods in a way that tells Chloe her head must still be killing her.

"Tell me."

 **M.P**

"Shit, Max, y-" Chloe catches her sagging body, arms wrapping so solidly around her. "You rewound." It's a realization that's more whisper than anything else, so gently-so _gently_ -tucking up her chin like a porcelain doll and Max is pretty sure this isn't the time to be treated like something priceless. Not with the world collapsing around them like their hometown is built with toothpicks (like their lives are built with toothpicks, snapped over and over again and glued together with blood). "Like the hospital."

Did she go to the hospital, this time? She thought she reversed it. Did she? Did Kate-

Kate.

 _You have to let her go._

"Where am-"

Her head. Her **head.** Max can't think.

She can't-

Chloe's hand cups her cheek and Max feels it now. The Sharknado of Fate behind them trying to ravage Arcadia Bay. The wind that's already knocked Chloe's beanie off her head, tossing their hair around like ragdolls, and Max is glad Chloe's holding her up because she's pretty sure the wind could knock her off this cliff without a second thought. She stumbles a little in her best friend's arms, forearm curling around her waist to steady her on the cliffside as Max takes it in.

"Shit."

Back here, again. Always right here.

"Very shit." Chloe agrees, trying to guide her up a little further towards the lighthouse, its roof already swirling around them like that cow in _Twister_. "Literal shit storm of shit." Double agrees. "Come on, Max. Stay with me, superbabe." It sounds nearly imploring and Max's knees give out as she tries to keep walking and Chloe must be seriously worried because she's about to pick her up bridal style when the feeling of dirt barely registers underneath bruised shins-was she kneeling for hours on Jefferson's floor in this line between points? Do her knees bruise, anyways? Or when she changes time, does she change her skin? Her bruises? Her blood? Did the glass find its way into her forehead like imbedded wrinkles? Did she-was she-

Rain. Rain pounding on her shoulders.

"Shit, shit, shit." She can't breathe. She can't think. She can't feel her hands.

She feels so cold.

"Don't stop now, Max. Come on. Come on. Come. On. We didn't go through all this to-"

"I can't." Chloe must not hear her over the wind. Over trying to physically pick her up and drag her through rocks and sand and _blood_ that Max isn't even really sure if her mind is remembering, or if it's all just a faraway memory.

"-give up now, right? Let's dig into that freakish bag of optimism you're always toting around and-"

"I can't." Max says louder.

"We just have to make it up the hill. Come on, Max, I can't lose you, now. Don't do this to me, now-"

"Don't you get it, Chloe? They want you." It tears its way up her throat like rocks rattling against an oil drum, but it's not loud. It's a weak kind of noise. Like the way her mother's nails quake or how her dad's teeth chatter. Like how Chloe's breath trickled like blood against her chin. Like how Max's heart is barely _pitter pattering_ in her chest. She has to keep going-she has to keep going-but her shoulders feel weighed down and her lungs feel like they're made of ash. It's all falling apart and her fucking _**head**_ _._

If she dies, will Chloe ever find her, at all?

"Fuck them!" Maybe it's a little ironic that Chloe doesn't even know what she's talking about and, even if her words aren't nearly as consoling as Kate's were, it's so familiar that the breath catches in her lungs. Because Chloe's voice cracks like God above them and it sounds so much like home that Max knows it isn't the rain stinging her eyes. And even now her hand raises to rewind like a dusty reflex but a rebellious, furious one snaps up to tangle their fingers. Chloe stops her. Chloe always stops her. "Don't!" She looks so pissed- _so_ pissed-and Max wonders when they wound up on the ground with her best friend practically cradling her in her lap, hovering over her like she can protect her from the storm. Especially when they both know she can't.

Max knows she can't.

It's some kind of pretentious Shakespeare irony, or something, and the worn girl selfishly, so selfishly, lets Chloe hold her (just for a minute because she's really, really tired), hand falling down to rest between them, the weight of restricting, caging fingers feeling more like freedom than steel.

Because Chloe never grabs both of her hands. Never. Even when Max never told her not to.

And now Max gets it.

"You're killing yourself, Max." Boy, doesn't that sound familiar. Her head lolls up, voice a breath on cracking lips.

"I can't lose you. I can't-" If it's a plea, there isn't a hint of pretense in it, anymore, eyes closing when she feels Chloe's tears on her cheeks. "But I can't let you die."

"So, what? You just kill yourself?" A frustrated, nearly pained noise and Max, in this moment-in this moment while she remembers-can picture the way the sun caught Chloe's eyes in their apartment, the way her lips used to curl over the edge of a pencil or a cigarette and run pittering fingers against a red line on their wall while she thought. She can feel those same fingers full of callouses and ink and swirling lines of life skimming along her lips, drunkenly singing _Samson and Delilah_ (the least sexy song ever)until they both laughed so hard they couldn't kiss, anymore.

Did they make it, once? Somewhere, in some timeline-this timeline-did they make it? Did Max do it, somewhere, some- _when_?

She did. They did.

They always do.

And Max doesn't just remember, she understands.

"I don't kill you, Chloe. You don't get it."

"You have to let me go, Max." Chloe must mis-hear her because she keeps talking. They've had this conversation, before. A million different ways but Chloe always, selfishly and bravely (because even though the world has chiseled Chloe Price's spine out of steel, her heart is tempered out of melting hotel sugar, beautiful and delicate even if it looks tough) arrives at the same conclusion.

"I tried, once." Max's eyes stay closed, but her fingers curl tighter into shoulders. "I think." This part of the conversation is new and she knows-she _knows_ -this isn't Chloe whose wrinkles are made from years of worn smiles and bare-knuckled bills; this isn't Chloe who drunkenly quoted bad poetry she found in the cabin in her ear on the edge of a boat on their honeymoon, sea sick patches clinging to their necks like badges of real-life pirate honor. But it's Chloe. No matter where the hell they are, no matter who they are or when they are, it's always _Chloe_ , telling her to Man Up while she holds her like a princess.

Her head pounds like an axe through a door.

"You-what?"

 **C.C.**

"The reason it never made any sense was because it never had anything to do with chaos theory, at all. It had to do with the arrow of fate." The fledgling professor moves over to the whiteboard in the edge of the class, flipping it the other way around to showcase a blank slate.

"The arrow of fate?" Max repeats. "The same, _giant arrow on our wall_ kind of arrow of fate?"

"Yep. Here," Chloe draws a clean, straight line on the board, "Is time." On the line, she draws a circle at the start, "Here's where we met," A circle in the middle, "Here's when I lost my Dad," A circle a little further down, "Here's when I lost _you_." Amending, given the day, "To Seattle. When we think you jumped. Maybe twice. Before Blackwell. And here's," Circle. Circle. Circle. She draws another circle at the end and one a little further away from it, "Where you saw me get shot. And the tornado from hell."

"Okay."

"This is time." Chloe repeats, drawing a second line through the one she'd already drawn, making it darker-angrier-bolder. "It's a line." She repeats, again.

"That part's important." Max guesses.

"Very important. It doesn't move or anything. It always just keeps going forward, because it's...it's like one dimensional."

"Okay."

"Okay. So keep that in mind while I-"

"Is this what you're like in class?" Max finally asks, a hint of a smile on her lips.

"Are you turned on, right now, Max? Come on, some seriousness in the classroom, please." Despite the day, Chloe still smirks, striking a pose with her marker, "I bet I could find some glasses if you're into-"

"No, I just can't believe I married such a nerd." Max tosses a nearby crumpled sticky note at her face.

"You're totally turned on right now. I know. It's okay. Hot for teach-"

"Maybe I'll send Warren a text and let him know I have a thing for nerds after all." Max laughs, hand shooting up to still the jostle of her head, wincing, and Chloe, no longer joking, brushes lips over the crown of bruised and breaking head.

"Too bad he still never had a shot." Fingers work through dark hair, waiting until Max's eyes are refocused on her to continue. "If you need a break, we can stop. Are you-"

"Totally fine. So time is a line. Giant red arrow on our wall. Got it."

"Right." A sigh, pulling back, picking up the nearby ball on her desk-a cheap dollar store basketball she got to throw at sleeping students, if she got the chance. "If I drop a ball and you play it in reverse, the physics of it makes sense. You can see it both ways. You can experience it both ways." Chloe drags the ball forwards above the line on the board. "The ball drops." She pulls it back on the line, "If you go back in time, you watch it in reverse, and time keeps moving forward while that happens, but time hasn't _changed_. The ball still moved and went back into your hand."

"O...kay. So what happens if you reverse time and then drop it? What if I threw it, instead?" Max asks, still idly rubbing at her temples.

"This." Chloe draws another circle, this time far enough underneath the other timeline in order to distinguish it, very elegantly labeling it _Max's Balls_. "The ball drops." She draws a line from the circle and stops. Then brings the marker back over the line she just drew back to the circle where the ball dropped. The reversal of time. "The ball goes back into your hand." She picks up her hand entirely from it and draws another circle at the end of where she'd stopped the ever-moving line of time. "Then you throw the ball. It's another event. But time never stops inbetween it."

"So time never stops? Time keeps going?"

"Time is on this line. Time, itself, can just keep going forward. It's...not a dimension we can see in anything but entropy or what already happened, so it-"

"Okay, don't go _that_ much into it." Max shakes her head. "So time keeps going. But...so then what happens to me, if I'm-if _I'm_ going back in time watching the ball go back to my hand, how could I make the decision to throw the ball?"

"Because you're back at the point in time where you make that decision. For the same period of time where you made the first one, you're right there, in that same circle, creating a new one, but time keeps going. You keep going, even if you aren't aware of it. You know you went back in time because you saw it. And you threw the ball because I saw you do it. Because you did it. It doesn't mean we're in a parallel universe, or anything, it just means both things happened on the same timeline."

"But I'm in the same moment." Max argues.

"But the rest of the world isn't. For me, you never dropped the ball, but to you, you did. The environment around you changed. I exist with you when you go back and forth through time. You-Hang on, lemme-I'll get to that in a second. So the physics, right?"

"My headache's getting worse."

"I know I dropped out and all, but I'm starting to get why you were a C student." It's a drawled statement accompanied by gentle fingers and Max waves her on.

"Just keep going already, Teach."

"So you drop the ball. You can watch the ball get tugged down into the ground by gravity, but the propulsionary force from it falling, when played in reverse-doesn't it make sense that a ball, when you drop it, has enough force to come back up into your hand?" She drops the ball and catches it for demonstration. "Physics doesn't change because time is in reverse. It would still need some kind of movement in order to bring that ball back into your hand. Some kind of force. So if you stop it at this moment where it hits the ground," Chloe holds the ball on the table, "And then were to watch it fall in reverse, it'd be going up to where you dropped it in the first place. And it'd make sense, because the force it hit the table with would be enough force for it to go back up into your hand."

"...what?"

"It means it makes mathematical sense. Repeating the action you just enacted _backwards_ always makes physical sense, with a couple of exceptions. And the statistical possibility of it always happening in reverse, if you were to rewind that action, is pretty much always _one hundred_."

"Okay. That...that makes sense. I guess. So it's all cause and effect, right?"

"Jenga. Time travel, just like physics, is cause and effect." Chloe might look a little proud. And a little excited, because it took her so long to get here-to come to this-and a little _fucking decimated_ because they're nearly out of time. She never should've quit smoking, because she could use one right about now. "In order for you to go back in time, there's a cause that affects it. Creating the future or, like...changing all of it-changing all of Arcadia Bay-that was something you could only do while moving forward through time. You couldn't do it while going back in time, right?"

"Right." Max agrees, "Because...I was the cause."

"And the effect." Chloe agrees. "So you go back in time. You change the future, but both things happened. So it was never multiple dimensions, Max. It was always...this **one**. This one right here."

"Wowsers." Max rubs at her head and Chloe, sometimes, can't believe she still says that.

"Everything happened on this timeline right here. Every single thing. And both of us have lived through it. The whole world has."

 **M.P.**

"Yeah, sorry, I know that must suck to hear."

"I-" Chloe sounds a little at loss for words. Max doesn't exactly blame her.

"I couldn't do it." She explains while she remembers. While this lasts. While she has her. "The first time I ripped up the picture and I-I saw you at your mom's diner. I saw the way you just...you hit the ground, Chloe. You just...you _crumpled_. It was like that scene in a movie where that person you love… _so_ much just...bottoms out. Only there wasn't any music or any _ever after_. You lost everything. Because of me. Because I couldn't do what you asked me to do, so I-I-" She shakes her head and rolls out of Chloe's arms onto her back, rain stinging her eyes. "I tried. I went to the bathroom and Nathan shot you again and again and again. And then I thought _maybe it could be me_ , you know? Maybe it was me all along. So I tried to stop him and you got shot, anyways. One time, I think he might've shot us both, but I don't...it's so hard for me to remember. It all sort of...jumbles together. But no matter _what_ he always shot you."

Chloe crawls over her body and Max, for a minute, is shielded from the rain, the fabric of the repeat slowly starting to make sense.

"I think, once, I...thought that maybe I had to get back to the beginning. I just kept thinking 'I have to go back' and I...I don't know why."

Now she does. Part of her does.

"So I went back further. I made it to Seattle. It was the furthest I could get, because I was an idiot and...ripped up that picture of us, with William. So...I called you. I wrote you. And everytime I called you, when we were apart, you died. You wound up staying at Blackwell and Jefferson…" Her voice cracks. "He killed you. Everytime. He took you. So I said fuck it, you know? Fuck it all, and let the tornado come and...and we went back to the town. We saved Joyce and the tornado showed up and...so many people…" Her eyes close, "So many people died. Kate died. But we got out of town. And we were happy. Well, we figured out how to be happy. We made it. We..." She laughs a little and her eyes aren't stinging from the rain, anymore. "We got married, you know."

"We...we what?" Chloe is just gaping at her, a little, and the water is running down her face like she's standing underneath God's waterfall.

 _They were young, once-_

She'd give anything to hear Chloe call her a hipster.

"Yeah." There's a hint of a broken laugh on her lips. "It took you, like, forever and a day to propose, but I didn't really care. We...we rented this boat for our honeymoon and got so drunk and sick on it that neither one of us ever made jokes about being pirates, again. And it was…" She's crying in dirt and her best friend's shoulder, "I loved you. I love you so much." She can't cling to her, anymore. She can't go back to the future she left and she can't go back to the past she'll destroy. "But you always died. And I...the older we got, the worse _I_ got. The...the less I could hold onto time. I guess. I didn't know what was going on half the time and I know it was killing you, too, but you were _alive_. I don't remember what happened. I don't remember...so much, it's like fragments. All I remember was that, one day, I couldn't save you, anymore. I couldn't. I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. You told me to go back but I couldn't, I couldn't let go." She raises up, fingers so desperate in the cloth of hunched shoulders. Of Kate. Of her mom. Of the way Chloe looked when she saw Max had hung her degree on the wall, eyes glinting glass, or the way she'd tuck a bracelet against her wrist.

Of time. Of her responsibility to it-to the world she feels like she's broken with splintered wood nails and good-intention eyes.

Of Chloe.

"I couldn't let go."

"Fuck, Max. I don't..." And it has to be a lot for Chloe to take in because she doesn't say anything else, other than that.

"I came back here but I've...I can't-"

"You can't what?"

"I'm stuck." Max tries to explain. "Half the time I can't remember anything, Chloe. I don't know what I'm reliving or where I've jumped to-when on the timeline-and I don't know if I'm changing anything or if I'm just _reliving_ it."

"That...that sounds so-"

"Fucked up." Max supplies.

" _So_ fucked up." Chloe agrees, the storm raging on around them.

 _Statistically_ , she wants to hear her say, _It's all going to get more fucked up, anyways._

Max's eyes close.

"But I...I think I know, now. My brain is so messed up, but I think I get it."

 **C.C**

"But you said earlier that time kept going. I get that-okay, so let's say it all happened on the same plane, or whatever, what does that _mean_?"

"It means if…" She runs her hand over her jaw, "Okay. You know Schrodinger's Cat, right? Cat in a box, before you open the box the cat's both dead and alive in the box till you open it. Super morbid thought experiment by a foreign guy."

"Right." Max gives her a look, "Hey, I know _some_ things."

"Okay, okay." Chloe holds up her hands, "So...imagine that if at the same time, on this same line, everything that ever happened backwards and forwards all happened. Only it's not the possibility of both. It's the concrete fact that both happened. Because you saw it. You saw me get shot. You reversed time and saw that reverse, as well, so that also happened because it existed."

"So time is on a line…" Max repeats what she seemingly gets, so far, "It's...it's linear." She stands up, stumbling a little, and Chloe's arm immediately wraps around her waist. If she concentrates hard enough, she can remember years ago-lifetimes ago-with rain staining their cheeks and tongues, doing this same thing. Max traces the line, "I go forward, but then I reverse and both things happen. I change what happens, but they've _both_ happened because I reversed it and time always...moves forward?"

"Now you're getting it, Science Max."

"I'm really not."

"Suck it up, you're totally smart. Live with it." Chloe's lips brush over her temple. "So you're wondering why I'm telling you all of this, right?"

"Yeah." Max leans further into her, arm tucking around her neck.

"So the only thing you can't stop with time moving is entropy. Entropy is-"

"Wasn't that a move in Dragon Age?" Max thoughtlessly mumbles. Chloe gives her a look as she sets her back on the table to go grab the remote to the prompter, popping off the back casing in order to reveal a battery.

"And you called me a nerd." She sets down the battery in front of Max. "Entropy is the...use or, like, destruction of the universe's ability to do work. Its potential. It's also how you measure that time's passed, because the world's changed as time moves. If you imagine that the universe is a lightbulb connected to this," Chloe taps the tip of the battery, "In this room, when it was first created this battery would be full, but...the more time that passes, the more energy the world uses up and the less energy the battery has. The less light we have left in our gas tank. Or whatever. The voltage on the battery could start at, like, 2 volts but as it ages, it'd eventually go to 0 but this room-this universe-was still heated. The energy was conserved and the potential for doing work is gone because we used it all up-"

"Like a dying star?"

"You got it Max Nye. Entropy. The world, after a certain point, can't put out anything else. Statistically, things get more fucked up the longer the world exists. More people cause ripples in the stream. The environment's tearing apart. That isn't something time travel would stop…"

"Because time is always moving forward." Max finishes.

"Exactly. So even though you've reversed time and changed time," Chloe slides her marker back on the line and makes a tick, and draws another line under it, labeling it _entropy_ , moving past the shorter line above them. "The environment is still going forward. The world is still using energy and fucking up more and more. You didn't cause the tornado. The world did. You reversed time so much and changed so much that the world kept getting more and more entropied. It was always going to happen, Max, it was...it was kind of literally just a question of _when_."

"But it wasn't supposed to happen _then_." Max's argument is immediate and desperate and Chloe wonders if she still wishes that she could change it.

"It was, just not with us there. With the world the way it was. If you'd let me die, maybe it would've postponed it, but...fuck, Max, we were stupid kids. Science isn't a vengeful God. The world didn't want a sacrifice. It's just always trying to find equilibrium in itself. If I'd died _here_ ," She makes an x over one of the circles, the one where she was shot, "Maybe all of the entropy _my_ existence caused, and all of the entropy caused from you trying to save me might've been postponed, we wouldn't have seen it until later on, but..."

"But it would've all eventually happened, anyways." Max quietly realizes, sounding like she's a million miles away and like the world is off her shoulders. "But...but you died. Every time."

"Entropy isn't just related to the environment. The more you messed with time, the more chaos around me changed, too. The more energy I lost to counter-balance-the more I lost my equilibrium. It wasn't _you_." Chloe emphasizes, "It was just the world around us. And I…" Chloe looks away, then, on the cusp of saying it. On the brink. Because, even now, facing down both of their ends, Chloe doesn't think she'll ever be as brave as Max was on that cliff.

"But...the reason I changed time." Max shakes her head, "The reason I changed time in Seattle, Chloe. It said to _save you_. Why do you think-why would it-" And there's something in Max's eyes-something determined and maybe a little scared (or is Chloe just projecting?) and urgent, like she understands what Chloe doesn't want to say.

"I don't know."

"You do." Max presses and Chloe hates that she knows her face so well. "Come on, Professor, look at the signs." Max gestures widely at the whiteboard with scattered notes and lines. Of converging circles. "We were never supposed to meet. _You're_ saying, what if we went back far enough to where we met and stopped it, then." Max points out. "I mean, we...neither one of us remembers how we _met_ , Chloe. What if...what if we were never supposed to-"

"Don't get all dramatic on me now, Max."

"What if you were never supposed to save my life?" Max asks. "What if it wasn't me saving you all along?" Her fingers curl around her elbow. "What if _I_ was supposed to-"

"Stop it." Chloe snaps. "That's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying?"

"I'm saying-I don't know what I'm saying. Fuck." Her hands scrub over her temples because she _does_ know what she's saying. She knows what Max is saying. But she doesn't want to say it. "What I remember isn't saving your life, I remember…" She remembers seeing Max on her porch. She remembers running. That's it. No car. No...anything. Why? _Why_?

Fuck.

She continues, ignoring it, "What _I'm_ saying, is that this is how your memories work, too."

"That's not what you're-"

Chloe continues on, still, blatantly ignoring her, "Like entropy. You don't remember those gaps because when you go back, you see both things occurring while time is still going forward with the new set of choices you made. So you don't remember any of the new. You 'snap back' to a future that you've existed through-a future that _I_ have a memory of because I was there, but you weren't. Existence is kind of relative and shit."

"That's...that's so messed up." Max stumbles a little over to the whiteboard, Chloe's arm firm around her.

"Yeah. You have to remember that all of those circles-all those changes to time-they're all happening in the same moment on the timeline. Just because entropy moves forward doesn't mean that that changes. So...you drop the ball." Chloe raises their joined hands to the circle, moving forward. "The ball goes back into your hand." She traces backwards over the line. "But while that's happening, you're throwing the ball." She moves underneath that line and draws an imaginary circle with their joined fingers, moving forward. "You remember what's in the circle, but you forget what happens in that gap. Because while you're going in time, you're missing this, and snapping back to the end of this," Chloe moves to the end of the line, "Because time kept moving. But if your memories work like time, where that ball bounces down, then goes up...maybe it would work in reverse, too. Maybe the reason you're losing touch with reality, now, is because you're finally coming into the end points of so many time changes. I'm no neurobiologist, but your body can't handle that-can't find its equilibrium-because your brain only has space for so many memories. Maybe that's why you're forgetting." Chloe swallows and Max turns away from the board to bury her nose in her neck like she's watching a tornado against a shore.

And Chloe doesn't know how to let go.

So she keeps talking, instead, "And maybe it would work in reverse, too. Maybe that's what's happening, maybe you're going back now in fragments like you used to do, then. Maybe this you-this...future, _now_ you-is going back constantly to fill those gaps where you don't remember anything throughout time, those times where you didn't have any energy to create friction, but _this_ you does. Maybe when you zone out, you are rewinding, but it's to where you already jumped. Maybe the world is already trying to find an equilibrium. But that's a theory. I haven't been able to prove it. Or...disprove it. There's parts of it that wouldn't make sense."

"There's no part of this that does make sense." Max's voice is muffled in the crook of her neck.

"Or maybe you could go back in time, and have all of _these_ memories, as well. Maybe we both could. I've been with you, every change. The whole world has. There...there _has_ to be a point where all of these points converge-both of _us_ converge..."

"But then the universe would still be entrophied, or whatever. What would that do?"

"If we go back far enough…" A deep breath. "Fine. Okay. Okay, what I was saying earlier was exactly what you thought. And I'm fucking furious about it, okay? I don't-"

Max gently cups her cheeks and Chloe looks at her, jaw set and eyes bright.

"It's not about saving my life, was it?" Max asks like it isn't really a question, at all, just a breath from the edge of her throat scraping along skin like a knife. Straight to the point and two pairs of blue eyes close.

And then Max goes and fucking says it:

"You think we were never supposed to meet."

 **M.P.**

"Max?" Chloe is shaking her and Max can barely feel it through the rain. When she opens her eyes, all she can see is black and _Chloe_ , rain soaking blue to her face, nearly purple in the storm, eyes so dark Max wishes she had her camera so that she could frame it. Could keep this moment in her pocket and come back to it, always, because every breath feels heavy. Large. She thinks the light house might disconnect. Thinks all of Arcadia Bay might lay to waste. But when she looks at Chloe, head pounding and blood staining her lips, she looks like she did when they were laughing in their apartment. When Chloe's lips would brush along her neck and smile and they'd just _stand_ there, looking out at the city, not saying anything because they wouldn't have to.

And Max has never loved fate more. She's never wanted to tear towns asunder and slaughter angels and betray her mother and let the world unravel like frayed strings of duct tape bound by her wrists. She's never wanted to let Chloe die a thousand times and save her a thousand more and become a broken, twisted piece of melted glass being pulled off the stick-frame of her body like butterfly wings.

 _I'll find you._

Chloe's hands cup her cheeks like they used to-like they _would_ , and have before-and Max shakily curves weak fingers around her wrist. "It...fuck, it sounds like...like you have to let me go for good, Max."

"Stop saying that." Max's voice is weak, "I can't." The final truth she has, and Chloe pulls her up into her arms, Max hanging so uselessly in them, letting the older girl arrange her until her back is pressed against her front. Until Chloe's arms wrap around her like an anchor. Until Chloe kisses her temple like she's something precious-not something so irrefutably broken-and tugs the folded, wet picture out of her pocket. "You don't understand."

It's the one of the butterfly-the one of a fluttering sheen of blue glistening against metal-but it's not the one she needs. Or...maybe it is.

Maybe it's Plan B.

Which would be great, because she's _so over_ the time travel thing. It's like one of those movies where she thought it should've ended so many times, already and-

 _and she'd take a thousand endings, if Chloe was in all of them._

"You can." Chloe whispers in her ear, "Shit, Max, I'm not excited to die, or anything, but I...I can't just keep letting you do this, knowing so many...versions of me. Or future me's. Or _whatever's_ are watching you do...this. Over and over again."

"Chloe." Max's voice quivers, leaning back into her, feeling the tornado so close, but only _hearing_ Chloe's voice in her ear.

"Do it, Super-Max. For good."

She's tired. So tired. Everyone's dead-Chloe's always dying-and she doesn't know how to fix it. Doesn't know how to do what she asks, what she always asks, of her. So she, for once, tangles their fingers as she raises her hand. Both of them joined. Maybe it's time faltering all around her-maybe it's the world coming to its knees or just a sick, twisted dream as she clings to Chloe's body a decade from now-but when time rewinds around them, Chloe's still there. Still against her. Figment, image, or not...she selfishly revels in it.

A trashcan. A butterfly. An empty bathroom in a school she'd lived in for a few months and a home she abandoned.

She rewinds back to _this moment._ She rewinds _both_ of them back to this moment...

And Max can't believe it. Can't believe it all makes sense.

This is **the moment**. The apex. The reason she couldn't find her, because she never went to the right **moment.** The right Max with the right memories never took the right path. Never went back to the right sliver.

The moment where two paths stand before them-the one they took and the one they didn't and _**did and didn't**_ -and all of them that they've taken before, and will take again. The moment where Max keeps coming back to because this is where all of their memories branch. This is where all of the circles stem from.

But it's not because Chloe dies.

She had to let go. She understands, now, what Chloe had tried to tell her in the hospital, _she had to let go._

She doesn't have to let go of her world:

She had to let go of **time.**

 **C.C**

"I _can't_ lose you. But maybe Seattle-or my Dad-maybe they weren't the first time you used your powers, Max. Maybe we never _were_ supposed to meet. Not then. And maybe if you put an end to all of that entropy then, all of those changes _then_ , we can give the universe enough time to sort its shit out. It'll still have used a lot of energy, but two lives are drops in the pond, right? It could find its equilibrium, maybe instead of a huge tornado it would be a series of storms and the world would be more statistically screwed, but...but just by twenty years compounded over a huge amount of time. Not twenty years in five days. Maybe if we let the universe have these...these huge statistical anomalies on their own fucking time, they'll leave us out of it."

"But we don't know that would work. We don't know if it would just...time could just keep going, according to your theory, Chloe. My brain might still be hemorrhaging and the tornado might still happen and things could just keep getting worse and worse and then I wouldn't have _you_ and we'd both be fucked-"

"We don't." Chloe agrees. "We don't know. But the only thing I do know is that it's the only way to save _you_ , Max." She swallows and wonders how Max did this so many times when they were both kids because Chloe can't play at God. She can barely play at human. Bluntly, she tells her: "Shit, this is probably not the best time to mention it, but…" A breath. They've always been honest. Always.

And maybe Max won't save herself, but she would-

"You told me, this morning, that I...that I die tomorrow. That there's nothing you can do about it. You're on auto-pilot, right now." She quietly informs her.

Max pulls back and looks down at her hand in horror like it's a gun she's just shot her with.

"No." And there's that look. That pained, tortured, furious, rebellious look. " _No_."

"You told me I had to do anything to stop it. You fucking begged me and then we were at the hospital and your brain is _seriously_ fucked up and-"

"Chloe, _no_. It was supposed to be-"

"The world is already fucking up because you jumped who knows how many times, and you're...if you keep this up, you know what the doctor said." Chloe cups her cheek. "Your brain can't take it. It's only going to get worse. We both know it's going to get worse." Her eyes are wet, now. "And I can't lose you, either."

"So you're asking me to give you up?" Max's voice cracks in the small classroom and Chloe cups the other cheek to hold her here. To hold them both here. "It's either you die, tomorrow, or we never meet?"

And there's the choice. The moment.

Chloe dies, tomorrow. Max dies, after. Unless Max goes back. Unless they go back far enough to where they never met, at all, and hope that it works out.

Hope that Max's brain isn't entrophied, along with the rest of the world. Because this is Chloe's last shot.

"I'm asking you to stop being a fucking hero all the time and for once-just for once-save the love of _my_ life, alright?" Chloe's voice breaks, too. "I don't know if it'll work, but it's all I've got, and I'm running out of time, here. We don't know how much time _you've_ got left and I'm...a ticking time-bomb. Time travel isn't the only thing I believe in, you know. You made me believe in something a whole lot crazier."

"Don't tell me you finally believe Narwhals are real." The quip seems so out of place on Max's croaking tongue. Like she can't take all the seriousness, anymore, and Chloe doesn't blame her one bit.

"No, smart-ass. Soul mates. And-"

"And Nietzche?" Max asks, finally leaning into Chloe's palm.

"And Nietzche. You sure you're not a mind-reader, Super Max?"

"No, I just pay attention when you read in bed. I thought I asked you about it. Maybe I never did. I don't remember-"

"You didn't." Chloe comes closer, still, lips brushing over her forehead. Again. And again. And again. "The Eternal Return. It's this...it's this thought where time isn't just linear, but cyclical, too. Where-"

"Where the universe is destined to repeat itself over and over again an infinite number of times? Where we'll always come right back here. Like a cosmic Groundhog Day."

"Yeah." Chloe swallows. Maybe Max did ask her about it. Maybe Chloe's the one who doesn't remember. Or maybe Max is. What does it even matter? "But what if it isn't just the same day-the same week-but us? I believe that."

"Amor fati." Max responds, eyes closing and Chloe gives her an unendingly loving look. "Love of fate." And Chloe thinks that the way Max says it is the same way she feels it in her chest-that she'd live every single one of these moments, every single day, over and over again, because they're standing right here. Right now. Together. Every destruction. Every bullet. Every tornado. Every tattoo smeared on their chests like warpaint and knees scraped along white floor.

Chloe has died a thousand times to live in Max's arms, and maybe the universe has, too.

Amor Fati: The Eternal Return.

 **M.P.**

The wind tears through the bathroom but the half-hollow Max above them is barely there, painted, muted colors and frayed edges, like an old photo that's been smeared while drying.

They're in the bathroom (but they aren't; they're at the lighthouse; they're in both places at once, Shroedinger's Chloe and Max) both of them leaning against the bathroom stall as a barely-clear image of Max stands above them, a picture of a butterfly fluttering from her hands. It's a figment-like how the world shifts around her as she rewinds, like how it did outside of the Vortex party-and all she can do is watch.

"Shit." Chloe murmurs behind her, both of them pale and barely here. "Are we...are we in some kind of time-paradox, or something?" Max exhaustedly leans into her, head barely tipping back as Chloe wipes the blood from underneath her nose.

"I don't know. This...this has never happened before. I've always been alone." She doesn't mean it to sound as...well, kind of depressing, as it does, but she's a little too tired to care, watching herself in front of them collapse down onto the floor, hands pushing through her hair as she cries, repeating Chloe's name over and over and over. "Science was always your department."

A second passed in sobbing and ghosts and both of them quiet and still.

And then Nathan barges into the bathroom.

"Shit." Chloe murmurs, again, and it might be cruel to force someone to watch themselves die. So her hand raises to rewind, again, despite everything finally tearing itself asunder, but Chloe so boldly-so bravely-stops her, tangling their fingers once more.

Max's head is pounding. She can barely think.

"Chloe-"

"No way, Super-Max. If I've...if I really gotta watch myself die, then…" A heavy breath and Max turns towards her. She doesn't have to watch it, herself-she's seen it far too much. Felt herself cry, behind them, far too much, indecisive until the end. Until she finally decided her first choice was always the only one there ever was. "Shit." Max's hands gently cup Chloe's cheeks, turning the blue-haired blonde towards her, searching familiar, endless eyes.

It's a terrible thing, to die alone. And Max never wanted Chloe to.

So Max leans up to gently kiss her-to tug her close-and for a moment, the world seems to shift into focus. She can't hear Nathan talking to himself by the mirror, or herself murmuring, or the sound of the door slamming. Chloe desperately pulls her closer, scared and resolute and _loving_ and Max's fingers tangle in wet hair. The lights flicker around them and she can hear the tornado, now-she can hear it; can feel it; the universe split and torn right here, right now-and she knows Chloe can feel it, too. She tastes like cigarettes and alcohol and butterflies and Max loves her.

She loves her.

She loves her.

She loves her.

 **C.C.**

"What if we were never supposed to meet but we always do? What if we live whatever lives we have together over and over until the world returns, again? What if maybe the world is scientifically fucked up the ass but I...but what if I will spend every single second of my life looking for you without knowing why until I find you?"

All she remembers is _running._

"Chloe." Max's voice cracks. "You won't remember me. You won't remember any of this."

"Some part of me will." Chloe argues. "Some part of me is going back and forth right with you, and someday I'll get it all back. I'll get everything back, because I've been right here through time with you, remember?" She kisses Max's ring, knowing the inscription that lies underneath the band. "If we've existed through all of this, some part of me will always remember. If time is a line, it's...fuck, it's _logical_ that it could repeat. Because you've _done_ that. You've gone forward and back on the same line, why couldn't we? There...there _has_ to be a point where all of this...converges, in order to start all over again. You can't reset something that doesn't have an end. There's always an apex. A moment-"

"-the two paths." Max murmurs and Chloe nods.

She memorized it years ago.

 _Two paths meet here; no one has yet followed either to its end. This long lane stretches back for an eternity. And the long lane out there, that is another eternity. They contradict each other, these paths; they offend each other face to face; and it is here at this gateway that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: 'Moment.'_

"And if we do reset it-if you do get far enough back-maybe I can find you. There will be a me somewhere that remembers _everything_ , where all of those circles align, and I can find that _you_ , too. That you that remembers everything. And I _will_ find you."

"You can't promise that." Max whispers.

"Hell yes I can. Because you're Max. You're my partner. My wife. My...my best friend and my fucking soulmate, and I don't care what timeline we're on, I'm not Chloe Anything without you. Literally. Figuratively. Every single goddamn version of me that's ever existed needs you to be her cause in order to be the effect. And for us to be in this moment, right now, for me to _exist_ I need you, and the world always tries to find equilibrium, remember?"

"We broke the world, remember?" Max bats back and Chloe wonders when she became the optimistic one when they both might die tomorrow.

"So 'broken' is its _new_ equilibrium. The world can fuck itself all it wants, it always will."

There's a long moment of silence and the world once more hangs on both of their shoulders.

But, mostly, on Max's. And Chloe hates it. And accepts it.

And selfishly wants her wife to live, tomorrow, whatever tomorrow is. Even if tomorrow is yesterday.

"The Eternal Return, huh?" Max repeats. "Destined to repeat our lives together for all of eternity."

"That's it."

"You'll always be with me?"

"Always."

Max raises her hand to brush through the hastily-tugged back strands of Chloe's hair, their rings inbetween them.

"I'll always be with you, too. So...try to remind yourself of this when you're pissed to hell at me for never meeting you." Max's voice stumbles over the words and Chloe wrenches her eyes shut. A half-hearted laugh, pulling back. And just like that, Max seems to have decided, like she always does. "But not yet." Max decides, selfishly tugging her back and there it is-that fire-that Max-because she's kissing her like she'll never let her go. "I don't know how far back I can go." She warns.

"I know you'll find a way."

"What if I can't?"

"Then we'll have to bank on Plan B," Chloe dips her finger inside the ring hanging around Max's neck. "The soul mate thing. If you can go to a moment and I can go to a moment where we both remember _everything_ …" She trails off. "Maybe the world will...reset itself. Or we will."

"That's it, Captain Science? Plan B is to just bank on us being so irreversibly entangled by fate that we'll both force ourselves to remember, and that you'll track me down through time and we'll reset it so that we'll never meet? And then...what, you'll find me, someday?"

"Yep." Chloe's lips sadly twitch a little upwards. She can't time-travel, she's no Super Max, but all of Chloe's timelines will eventually reach an apex, too. Maybe her progression will be linear. Maybe Max's...Maybe Max's will be easy. "Then we'll do it all again. All of it."

What if Max has to relive it all? What if Max-

What if Max-

Fuck it, there's no time to doubt, now.

 _Because what if Max dies tomorrow, too?_

"Who's to say we _haven't_ done it all before, Chloe?" Their eyes meet. "It's a serious question-the kind of mind-boggling notion that she doesn't know whether it terrifies her...or makes her content and Chloe remembers Max leaning back against her, both papers scattered along the scratched wood of their small apartment floor.

 _Do you ever get the feeling like we've done this all before?_

Fuck.

And maybe it's true. Maybe Chloe has a different memory for a reason. Maybe they're destroying the world or saving it or just being reborn with it, again. Whatever it is, Chloe just brings Max closer, marker-stained fingers dipping underneath the bandage around a tilted head to free it-to look fully into blue eyes-and maybe Chloe shouldn't be so content, right now. None of it's logical. But love isn't science. **Love** is…

Max. To her. It always will be.

Max is **loss** , too.

 **M.P.**

"I'm scared." Chloe whispers when they pull away, Max's hand cupping her cheek.

"I know." Their foreheads slot together and Max tugs off the ring around her neck, pressing it into Chloe's palm. "But you're not alone. Okay?" Chloe lets out a pained, tearful laugh, throat clenching and strangling as she looks down at the ring in her palm, tears falling between them and Max closes fingers around it. Holds Chloe's hand around both of them, because they belong with her.

"I can't believe we got fucking _hitched_ , Caulfield." It's disbelieving and so loving that all Max can do is hold her.

"Yeah." Maybe she should make a joke, or something, but the wind is still crashing through the bathroom and Chloe and Nathan crash against the wall with it, unknowing. "But that's Price, to you." It's barely a whisper and Max can't make jokes because she remembers how she met her. How they laid in the snow, both of them wet and shivering, how she'd wanted to paint blue butterflies in the girl's hair-

How Chloe had just saved her life.

How Chloe was never supposed to.

The gun goes off and Max knows this is it.

"But you aren't dying. Not today. I mean, you are, but…" A shake of the head, "You told me, once, that there might be a point in time where both of us snap to the same...circle. Dot. Where you'd remember and I'd remember and I'm banking on this being it, Chloe." Max notes because it was never about killing Chloe, at all. "Because I'm about to forget, again. I'm about to forget and I don't know where I'll be pulled to or where you'll be pulled to or...or what's about to happen."

"W-what?" They're both faint. So faint, two things happening at once, the reverse and the forward.

This moment where everything diverges and everything's happened and will happen and has already happened.

Maybe she should've paid more attention to Chloe's papers.

The blood from her nose drips between them, staining dirt and tile and Chloe's jeans.

"It's not you." Max whispers. "It was never about killing you. It was me. I was never supposed to-"

 **C.C**

"So..." Max's fingers brush through her hair, resolute, "Plan B."

"Plan B. It won't be easy, I mean...theoretically," Chloe pulls over a nearby piece of paper so that they don't have to go back to the board, again, grabbing a sharpie off the slightly-askew desk.

"Theoretically?" Max repeats.

"Theoretically, if we're just repeating the same timeline over and over again, I don't really die. Somehow. Whatever is... _me_ , doesn't die. It goes back with you. So if we're here, at the end of tomorrow," She draws a circle, not labeling her own death for both of their sake's, "I would be going _back_ on the line, because that's the only way I should be able to travel through time, since I'm not you. I don't jump around. I always exist. All versions of me exist on this repeating line, but the only way this version of knowledge in my head can exist, would be to go either forward, or backwards, through a series of events. So...I'd go backwards. And I would always remember. All of this. Probably. Maybe. But, I...don't know whether you would."

"But then you couldn't change anything, right? If you're...going backwards. You said you can only change time going forwards."

"Right." Chloe agrees, lifting the marker up to her chin, tapping, thinking, "But I'm not the one changing time. You are. If everything's already happened, and going to happen, again," Chloe straightens, eyes widening a little, because that's _it_. "If everything's already happened, before, there's nothing to change. It's all already in existence. It's just...it's just a statistical random russian roulette shot of which one will happen, in that moment, and I'm on that line of all of them. I'd be going backwards towards the apex, and you-"

"So you'd be going _back_ through time in moments?"

"Fragments. Those small circles where _this_ you exists, in your mind. I'd be there through all of those."

"So what about me? How do I get back to the apex?" Max repeats the sentence she'd cut off a moment earlier, arms wrapping around Chloe's neck.

"Well, you're already being pulled back in fragments. And, statistically, each time you relive one of those moments, there's more of a chance of you remembering...everything. All of it. Because everything's already happened. It's just a matter of when. A matter of you gaining more of yourself as you go through time. If the world really is supposed to return, to repeat the cycle, then...then it'll try to sort itself out. It'll try to find its own equilibrium, remember? The world always wants to do work the easiest. So _you_ choose the moments, Max. You just...you need to find the apex. You need to find the moment where everything changed, where all of the circles for us, now, and us, then, merge. I'll go backwards, and you'll...you'll go through enough moments until you remember, and then we'll…" Shit.

"What?" Max searches her eyes and Chloe sighs, eyes closing as her gaze falls, a shoulder shrugging. Admitting:

"I don't know."

"And then we'll Plan B, science guy?" Max supplies, voice endlessly loving and strong and so close to her trembling pulse. And those soft fingers tip up a chin until their eyes meet and Chloe can see, now, that her wife's crying in a way that makes her think Max probably doesn't even know why. Maybe she does.

"That's the idea." It's a rasp, because she understands, in this moment, what she's asking Max to do. Understands what she asked her to do last week and how this is shittier. Way shittier. Because Chloe's asking Max to let her wife die, tomorrow. To risk her life going back into an endless series of repeatable moments that might ruin their lives, while Chloe will always be waiting for her. Always trying to find her. Make it so that they never met, at all, on the pipe dream that all of it will work in the first place and then, after that, that they'll meet, again, and do it all again. All of it.

All of the dying. All of the pain. All of the loss.

Just for a chance at this.

Chloe's asking Max to believe that them creating their own fate involves being fate, itself.

"Maybe time is more complicated than either one of us knows what to do with." Max proposes. "I've been messing with it my whole life and I still don't get it." Blue is endless and her hand stretches up between them, but Max doesn't rewind anything, and Chloe leans down to kiss her knuckles. She hasn't seen Max rewind anything in years.

Hell, technically, Chloe right now doesn't remember ever having seen it.

"Maybe you're right. If I...if I've already been going back, maybe you're right." And there's a hint of hope in Max's eyes, that irrevocable spark of _determination_ that looks like _Max,_ "We can do this."

"We can do this." Chloe agrees. "All we have to do is remember. If you can't go back far enough..."

"We haven't been apart for a single night since we've been together, Chloe." Max murmurs, fingers so lovingly skimming across her cheek. If it works, that won't be true. They'll have been apart for...who knows how long, until Chloe can find her. "You better be right about this, because I can't live without you. Alright?"

Chloe swallows and holds her against her chest and nods, promising: "I'll find you."

"Still. We...we should leave. If I'm seriously on auto-pilot, right now, then there's still a chance we can-"

"No, Max." A breath and maybe she is braver than she thought. "Look, I'm not excited about dying, but...you haven't looked at yourself in a mirror, lately. We don't know how many times you've tried to go back and change it. We don't know how many times you've tried, but it's _killing_ you."

"I don't care if-"

"I do." She tugs her towards the desk, then, picking her up and placing her on it, fingers curling in knees. "I'd rather just...can't I just get one more night with you?"

"Did I tell you how it happened?" Max looks like she's trying to distract herself running her fingers over and over again along Chloe's ring.

"No."

"So we're supposed to just pretend it's not going to-"

"We're _supposed_ to just...fuck, Max. I don't know. Can't we just break the cycle, one time, and-"

"Chloe. You're already asking me to go back in time and...and erase all of... _us_. You want me to kill y-"

Chloe gently stems the protest by cupping her hand over her wife's mouth. "Do not. Say that. It's not you killing me, Max." She whispers. "It's never been you killing me. It's been you breaking apart the whole...fucking world to save me. And I get that. I _get_ that, okay? I've always gotten that. This isn't you letting me die-this isn't you killing me-this is you...giving me one really, really good memory to hold onto before whatever happens when you go back. I know what I'm asking you to do." Her hand drops from Max's lips and Max's nose turns into it. "I get that it sucks."

"It more than just sucks, Chloe." Her voice is barely a whisper.

"It's the shittiest thing I've ever asked." She admits. "I don't know if you going back that far is even possible, or...or what'll happen to both of our memories. God, I don't know if I'll even be...part there, or all there or-for all I know, I'm going to accidentally...fuck, _kill_ you asking you to save yourself." It makes her lungs ice and her eyes sting. "To save both of us. And I get how selfish that is. I get how fucking selfish I am-"

"Chloe." Max's breath is so warm against her palm and Chloe can barely see her through the tears.

"But we both know you're running out of time and I don't care if I die, tomorrow. I know it doesn't make any fucking science sense, thinking that I'll be able to _find_ you but-"

"You found me on the street." Max's eyes are still so wet and Chloe pulls her impossibly closer on unsteady knees. "You found me in the parking lot."

"I wasn't trying to find you, then."

"How do you know?" Max questions and Chloe wonders when their roles found their rightful place. When this turned into her being the skeptic and Max being beautiful and believing and so _optimistic_. So determined. "You're not selfish-"

"I don't want you to go through anymore of this shit. I don't want you to go back and live through all of that on a hunch-"

"Amor Fati." Max repeats, cupping her cheeks. "I'd go through a thousand dark rooms if it meant-"

"Don't say that. Come on, enough of the sappy lines, don't say _that._ "

"I'm doing this to save you, tomorrow. Not save me." Max admits.

"I know."

"And if this doesn't work, I'm going to be really pissed."

"I know."

"Because I don't know how to stand by and just-"

"You're not killing me." Chloe repeats. "You're trying to save me. We remember this. All of this. Some part of us, right? If I'm going to stand here and tell you that I want us to do all of this again, that I'm finding some kind of...of peace with my fate-" Her voice hitches, "Then that starts with us accepting what's gonna happen, tomorrow. Accepting that it might happen, again. That I'm gonna die, tomorrow, Max, and you're going to go back."

Max's fingers raise up, curling in her hair like a child scared of heights clinging to a swingset's chains. "Chloe…"

"I'm scared." She admits, "Alright? I'm scared, and I...I just want tonight. Kind of sappy and romantic, I know, but, hey, I always told you if I was in prison and had one last meal, it'd be y-" Max cuts her off with her mouth and it isn't long until they're pushing things off of her desk like a 90's sitcom sex scene but it's softer. It's warmer. Because they're _making love_ like it'll be the last fucking time in the middle of a locked classroom (it just _might_ be, but it won't-it won't be, it can't) and Chloe memorizes every moment of this.

She memorizes the way Max's fingers curve around her cheeks-how her fingers smooth down her back and how her breath hitches when lips dance along initials. She memorizes the way wet warmth feels in her neck as Max _holds_ her. She memorized every dip and curve of Max's body years ago, but she hasn't memorized the look in her eyes, and for the first time in her life she wishes she had a camera.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you-_

It's all she can say and all she knows and the next morning she watches the sun dance along Max's skin in painted lines and reaches over to grab the camera her wife always keeps with her-always-nuzzling into her neck. She barely feels Max's hand curve around her wrist, guiding the camera, meeting her eyes. They kiss and the photograph falls between them as Max tucks it in her journal like she tucks a blanket around her shoulders every night.

"I love you." Max whispers in her ear and Chloe knows. She _knows_.

"Promise me you won't try to fix today, anymore. You have to go back before you come back from auto-pilot. Promise me you'll-" She's crying, again, trying to keep the rumble in her throat and this time Max kisses her. Traces the ring around her finger like the vow it is. Till death try to tear them apart.

"I'll find you, too. Plan whatever, I'll...I'll stay alive and find you, too."

"Plan B." Chloe whispers against her lips.

"Plan B." Max promises her.

This is what peace feels like, she thinks. Painful, beautiful, loving fucking peace.

It feels like Plan B.

 **M.P.**

Her head is searing. Fucking _searing._ The classroom and Chloe drawing a line on a piece of paper. A whiteboard. A ball. She remembers Chloe, older and easier and loving and intelligent, kneeling down in front of her as her nose bled. She remembers Chloe explaining how it all worked. How it should all work.

How they could let the universe sort their own fucked up fate, for once.

"Max, what are you-why are we-"

"You better be right about your theory, Chlo, otherwise the whole world is going to be screwed." And Max isn't sure she can rewind. Not this time. Not with her head like this. The only other time it was like this was with Kate, a rooftop and such limited possibilities underneath her fingertips. But Max let go of that, too. Chloe was right, her brain can only do so much, and this is the end of the line. This is where all of the Max's finally end, whatever action they stem from, and where all of the Chloe's end and begin.

Okay, so maybe Max still doesn't understand _all_ of it (Chloe was right, she was a C student) but she understands Chloe against her. Alive. "Plan B."

She understands that she believes in the soulmate thing, too.

 **C.C.**

It's the first and only time Chloe decides that saving Max is more important than keeping her, but even as she lies dying on the side of the street three hours later, her truck overturned and a picture of herself and a stack of photos falling down between them, torn, Max desperately trying to claw her way out of her seatbelt to cross the distance-

-fucking cars-

she knows the cause is already set in place for her final effect, and Max-

Max. Max. Max.

Even now, Chloe selfishly decides she'll keep her, somehow-some fucking how-too, hand quaking as it raises when Max finally makes it across, crawling through glass and debri and pictures of them, both of them stained red, both of them battered and bruised. Chloe's fingers can't make it the whole way up, so Max raises her hand to her cheek, for her. Even as the brunette collapses down against her, and Chloe wonders why it's so familiar-

Wonders why Max laying next to her in a pile of blood is so familiar.

She's saying something, but Chloe can't hear her, and she looks so...lost. So hurt. So sad.

How many times has she seen this? Seen Max mourn her?

She can't remember how she got here, anymore, and it's not true, the whole thing about life flashing before her eyes. Because how many times has she died, now?

How many times has she lived?

Kind of anticlimactic, isn't it? But maybe life always is.

Maybe death's sort of a whimper, not a bang.

Maybe she'll do it all again, sometime. With Max. All of it. Even this.

Weak fingers try to hold Max close-to hold Max here-watching a swimming vision of her partner raise up her hand between them to-

 _If I had to go back to a moment...maybe...maybe this one-_

 **Max.** _ **Max.**_

"Chloe-"

Max begs. She hears her. Her name.

God, her head hurts.

She has to do it. Before it's too late. It's all blurring together. It's all fading.

Entropy. She can feel it. Can feel time shift and quake and _still._

" _Go. Bac-"_

 **M.P.**

"What?" Chloe's growing fainter. Fainter. She's watching herself die and Max sobbing in the corner. Max's hands snap up to keep her here-to keep this fragment of time here-and she doesn't have pictures, anymore. Just her memories. Just the ring Chloe is holding in her palm. Just Chloe.

"It's time to start over." Max yells over the storm. Over Nathan's shoes echoing through the halls. Over her own sobs in the corner. The tornado overwhelms Arcadia Bay from the cliff and Chloe dies alone and in some third circle on the line, right here, in the same fragment of life as them both, Max cups her cheeks in her hands and, **for once, doesn't rewind-** -

 _A ghost behind them, Max crawls out from behind the stall and raises her hand up-_

"Chloe, find me. Once you get back to yourself, find me."

-as a blue butterfly fades in the distance, reappearing in a snowy field over two decades ago, her hand falling on ashen pavement with a resounding thud.

 **She lets herself be pulled into their future, instead.**


	9. Chapter 9

**note:** yep. This was the plan from the start, good or bad. This has been such a tumultuous journey. I love each and every one of you that have stuck through this whole thing and I hope the ending gives you (at least a small) sense of peace. **\- Jae**

 **The End of the Start.**

" _Now I die and vanish… the soul is as immortal as the body. But the knot of causes in which I am entangled recurs and will create me again. I myself belong to the causes of eternal recurrence. I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent – not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: I come back eternally to this same, selfsame life, in what is greatest as in what is smallest, to teach again the eternal recurrence of all things…"_

Friedrich Nietzsche - _Zarathustra_

The air conditioner never works, here, though it rattles like it's trying to unclip its hinges, and the air hanging in the apartment is warm. It's not quite hot given the breeze faintly chasing butterflies of dust through a barely-cracked window, but it is _warm_. The breeze does its best, however, to alleviate it, dipping low against wooden floors and a mattress before mingling up against white walls and pictures and red smears. It faintly caresses fluttering pages along a wall like a windchime before dissipating and rolling through the window, once more, sounds of the city muffled but ever present in the background.

The wind is good friends with an obscured wall in the line of this room.

The line doesn't move to greet its friend, despite the pressing wind and rattling air conditioner, seemingly content right where it is.

This line is unassuming in its entirety, splashing violent, muted red across walls, littered with so many notes that it's nearly impossible to see where it starts and ends, anymore. It could be arguable that the line is no longer much of a line, at all, but a collage-this artistic science masterpiece-a composed jumble of notes and papers and pictures that are hastily pinned into sheetrock with anxious fingers and slitting eyes. Years of postulative articles and question marks (and stick-figure drawings a girl lifetimes away drew to taunt her partner in crime) marking one endless question frustratedly written underneath it in black paint that had stained far more than just fingers:

 _ **WHERE DOES THE LINE END?**_

Funnily enough, there are two ends to the seemingly endless-line on the wall, though that might not answer the angry question. One end is marked by a hastily-edited paper, ripped and stained with cologne from an overly-zealous student. This paper was Ian Matthew's finest paper throughout all of his college career, his pride and joy (which might have been slightly depressing for Ian, given the actual _success_ of the paper, which garnished a 'C' letter-grade); however, something must have seemed particularly important about the paper to have found a copy of it torn and settled on this line, one sentence highlighted despite the lingering red on the paper.

 _-perhaps it could be argued, then, undeniably, that when a memory is erased it increases entropological events, so then, as long as entropy continues then the memory cannot be erased, only be dormant._ _ **So obviously the psychological arrow of time, or "memory system" like the subject of the paper proposed, must align with the thermodynamic arrow of time.**_ _So even if you were to reverse time, memories would be an irreversible system because entropy, along the arrow of time, would obviously be continuing-_

(One sentence on the edge of it asks _'why do you say obviously in papers so much, Ian?'_ in the corner).

There is a spot of end after this paper, despite the years of filling it, and it seems the inhabitants of the apartment left in too much of a rush to knowingly fill it, but that's not the only marker.

On the start of the line is another curious thing, precariously-tipped like an eraser on the edge of a pencil.

It's a picture of two girls, hair tossled and eyes obscured, but smiles so wide as they topple into a blanket fort built with hockey sticks and tennis rackets (and a few barbies, though those aren't visible). It's a picture no one might remember putting on the wall-or even remember taking-torn down the middle but taped together with the oddest sort of care, and when the sun glistens off it, the two girls in the picture seem to glisten, too.

Somewhen, two quaking hands lift up that same picture, no tear down the middle, moisture staining the edges and knees pressing into the earth, and when the sun glistens off its worn sheen, a reflection showcases a broken smile staring down at it.

Time doesn't hear, but if it could, it might hear a sobbing laugh.

 **M.P**

Her head feels like it's splitting in two. It feels like an exploding, ripping star, every atom in her mind rattling and fusing together and tearing apart, again. It feels hot and heavy and overwhelming and Max is on her knees, clutching at it when she's suddenly back...here, again. Back where she was.

Home.

No tornado. No gunshots. No...anything, just the gentle sound of waves and birds and crisp air in her lungs..

And her mind, for the first time in...years-lifetimes, maybe-feels clear.

The lighthouse stands like a beacon over all of Arcadia Bay, despite the rickety quake of its slowly-twirling light and the wind gently brushes through her hair like her mom's fingers used to do, when they didn't quiver and bend at knobs like a broken hinge. The sun paints the skies in red, golden hues and Max turns to look at it, journal falling from her hands as she takes it in.

It's beautiful. And Max, not even a single thought of contradiction to it, breathes it in.

"The golden hour." A voice gently calls from behind her and Max doesn't turn to look, eyes closing as she feels the sun grace the valleys of her skin with warmth. A nearly content smile tucks up her lips.

They both remember. It's the right time.

Suddenly, Max isn't tired, anymore.

"Surprised you know that." It's a smile, feeling a warm body slide up next to her, kneeling down on the ground right by her side. Chloe's warmer than the sunset-than the fading rays dipping beneath the endless ocean-and their fingers barely brush, pinkies curling in the most comforting of greetings.

Home.

"You taught me that, once." Max finally opens her eyes, watching the sun keep falling and falling and falling. There's no blood to wipe from her nose, not this time, listening to her. "I listen when you talk, sometimes."

"Just sometimes."

"We were walking by the beach…"

"Oh." Max's head dips to look up away from the setting sun, free hand raising up to brush blue hair out of bluer eyes. It's faded, a little, like it has been blue for far too long. She killed her, then, after they walked on that beach. Chloe catches her hand, nose dipping to kiss her palm and Max notices the rings on her finger. Both of them. The rings Chloe always had. Always. Even when they were kids.

She remembers the day when Chloe held her hands and whispered _tell me everything_ and wonders if this is it. Wonders if it's years later or years before or...if it even matters. Wonders if she'd shoved those rings into Chloe's hands in the bathroom and if Chloe somehow kept them with her, too. Or maybe she did that, before.

She's not really keeping track, anymore.

But...she doesn't really have to wonder. They've done it all before, and they'll do it all, again. Until the world dries up like a tilted-over C battery on a new-professor's desk, washing acid into wood like an old pair of 80's jeans. At least, she's pretty sure that's how it'll go.

"So...we're both here, huh? Watching our last sunset. Kind of romantic." Chloe's face crumples a little and her head ducks and Max moves fingers up from holding her pinky to holding her whole hand and they tangle like the worn roots of a tree. "Kind of painful."

"Yeah." Max agrees, tugging Chloe close, immediately burying her nose in her neck and familiar, long arms wrap around her waist in response. "Guess this is what Plan B looks like."

"I'm sorry. I never...I never knew you'd have to-in the pool, I realized you-I realized you were reliving-"

Max wonders if it was this Chloe who was keeping her from burning a gun into her own chest and she leans into her.

Neither one of them really realized.

"Does it really matter, now?" Max quietly asks in her ear and she can feel the tension quietly flood out of her partner-in-time, free hand raising to cup her shoulder like an apology. It matters, Max knows, to Chloe. It always will. But it was worth it. Every second. Every stupid fucking chaotic second, to be right here, because Max's last memory isn't of Chloe dying in a bathroom, it's of her dying on the side of a road, desperately clinging her hand as she whispered:

 _Go. Go back. Go back. Plan B._

And she wonders if they've reset, before, and if she always finds this sense of peace, here. Outside of a lighthouse in Chloe's arms with the sun setting behind them, snow gently falling around them, but they're not separated in this sea of white and Max gently brushes a piece of it from a red nose.

After a moment, Chloe gently brings a crumpled photo up inbetween them and it takes her a few seconds to place it before Max gasps.

"You...kept this?"

"No." Chloe admits. "I mean, I did. But I burned it...years ago? I mean, I didn't burn it. I might've burned it tomorrow but I-man, that's weird to say. Is it always like this, for you? This whole...time travel thing?"

"It never gets easier." Max relents, tracing over the lines of the picture. Adding for good measure, "Science guy." Two young girls, laughing in a pile of blanket forts, blonde and brown hair tossled. "Why did you burn-" Max looks up at her, at the way Chloe's face contorts in pain and loss, still, a little ashamed, and her hand skims along her jaw. "It doesn't matter, Chloe. I don't blame you. But this still isn't far back, enough. Not for us to reverse it all."

"It might be just enough for you to rewind."

"I've never tried to rewind from a picture, before." It's a mumble and Chloe tips her chin up, shrugging her shoulders.

Max looks down at it, face soft and conflicted. Can she? Does she have it in her? Does her mind even-

"I'm pretty sure you _have_ if we're both actually sitting here right now, Superbabe."

"Oh." Well...that makes enough sense. If they've relived it all before, then she's- "Oh."

Chloe cups her jaw. "Back at the tornado, I asked you to make a choice that...really wasn't fair. I did it in the classroom, too. I get that. This time it's up to us. It's both of us. I...I don't want to lose you." She swallows and leans down until a warm nose is pressed in Max's neck and the time-turner forgets all about the warmth of the sunset. "Even after everything I said in the classroom, I don't want to lose you. We can go back to this moment and...and live it all again. I'll be right there with you-"

"You'll die." Max closes her eyes, holding tighter on her hand and Chloe lets out a quiet laugh, like she's remembering something. But it's nothing actually all that funny because she can feel a wetter warmth against her neck.

"You might die if you try going back any further, too. You might die after I do, when...ever we're from." Chloe's crying. Which is just great. Because when Chloe cries, she cries like a baby, too. "You might die, too." She whispers, again, and it's not really much of a choice.

Because they've done this before and they'll do this, again.

She isn't ripping up any pictures on this cliff, not anymore.

"You'll find me." Max repeats Chloe's earlier sentiment, before she had to watch her die in the future and again and again and again in the past. "You found me, today. You found me when we were kids. You found me in the parking lot. And you'll...you'll find me again, someday." There's a long pause, and they both arrive to the same conclusion, lips brushing over her forehead as Chloe murmurs:

"I'll find you."

She remembers Kate Marsh telling her that sometimes, in order to rest, you have to let go.

Chloe deserves rest. Maybe Max deserves it. Kate, Max thinks, who she always returned to and begged and pleaded and smiled with-who she had to let go, too-deserves rest.

"Don't you forget about me." Max whispers, wondering if there was ever a circle where she let Chloe die. Where the tornado took the town, anyways, and her heart along with it. If there was ever a picture of a butterfly on a casket and it's then that Max realizes and lets the world of everything that's been and _has_ been and was and wasn't and always will be wash over her-where she finds peace in every breath they shared and didn't and will, again, until they come back to this moment to do it all again:

 _Max went back to Seattle._

 _Her mom. Chloe's dad. A thousand shattered windows and lives._

 _Kate. Rachel._

They can never let each other die, but they can let each other go. Just for a while. Just for enough. It's kind of romantic, isn't it? In the sort of way that makes her stomach hollow and her chest warm and her eyes wet.

Amor Fati-they'll return here, someday. They'll return and return and return until the end of eternity, whenever that is, until the world's battery dries up like a beached whale underneath the scorching sunset of a Golden Hour and they sit here and watch the sun rise and set until snow crunches underneath their shoes and maybe they'll figure out how to fix that, too. Or maybe they won't.

Chloe remembers, too, and cups her cheeks like she loves her.

"Never." Chloe breathes and tugs her down until their mouths meet. "You better do it before I lose my nerve." Her wife's-fiancee's-girlfriend's-best friend's-voice breaks against her mouth and this time, Max doesn't need to just focus on the picture to go back. She kisses her and kisses her and the world spins around them until their hair grows color and changes and they move and shift and _shrink_. The world spins around them until Max has fewer freckles but paler skin and Chloe's hair is so long she gave the Hansons a run for their money. The world spins around them until they're both breathless and cold and their lips are no longer touching, both of them standing on a street and a hand raised between them. For a second, they're close, and the next, the world shifts further and they're _apart_.

It's still snowing, but they're not sharing the golden hour, anymore.

A blue butterfly dances above a young brunette, skin so cold, heading towards the street and Max and Chloe meet each other's eyes across a sea of white, so distant and distorted. The world is clear and the red underneath Max's nose is a stark contrast to the cleanliness around them.

It's the day they met.

"Max?" Chloe stumbles up from the ground, obviously disoriented but, for a moment, _her_. All of her. Every single Chloe Max has ever known, and this one in front of her that she never will. Realization might cross her features, a set of rings tugged off and clenched in her palm. A picture flutters from Max's hands-the one they'll never take, this same day, laughing and full of snow and life in a pile of mussed blankets-and Max never looks away from her. She should rip it...but she doesn't.

Her head doesn't hurt and Max wonders if this is what Chloe meant about equilibrium. About resetting. About the world's apex with them standing on either side of the point.

And, boy, does it fucking _hurt._

Chloe's running towards her, desperate and knowing and Max remembers that she's not the only one who was so in love she was willing to let her go, fighting against memories she'll lose and Chloe tosses her hand up, reaching out towards her over a cavern of white.

Always a cavern of white.

Max raises her hand, too.

 _Don't you forget about me._

 _-never._

 _I'll be with you._

 _-always._

But a balloon pops. A car zooms inbetween them. Thousands of lifetimes of memories fade from their minds, snapshots of pictures stuffed in a journal and hung above a bed now frozen underneath the ground by a lighthouse miles and miles away. The car passes and Max catches the eyes of a girl she doesn't know, a butterfly fading in the distance, and, noticing the girl's hand is already in the air, Max slowly lifts her own and hesitantly waves.

She doesn't know her, but she would like to.

The blonde girl smiles and waves back, a snowball snapping into white ash as it collides with her garage door. There's so much distance between them but they both laugh, young and carefree and cheeks both red with the cold, and Max is close to hopping down from the stairs and going to meet her-to finally introduce herself because she thinks the girl has the largest smile and the deepest eyes and they should really, really be friends-when her mom steps out from behind her, hand curving over her shoulder. She coughs mist above her shoulder and a shiver rolls down Max's spine. Like something's different. Like something's changed, just a little. But she's too young to know what _entropy_ means.

"Max."

And Max groans because, great, now she's gotta pack all of her stuff.

The blonde girl looks disappointed, head hanging when Max follows her mother inside, and Max isn't sure what this sinking, horrible feeling in her gut is, but she hates it. Something catches her eye on the white porch and young brows knit, swooping down to scoop up a portrait of two faces she can't see, but laughter she can.

Totally weird. Because it sort of looks like-

 _Nah._

She smiles and tucks it in her pocket, swallowing down something dusty and far too old for a young kid to have rattling around in her chest, running up the stairs to finish packing.

Outside, she doesn't see the girl who looks down at her palm, eyes transfixed on two rings, tucking them inside her snowy pocket like she's hanging a dreamcatcher above her bed.

It's not the last time Max decides that saving Chloe is more important than having her, but she never remembers it.

 **C.P**

It's a regular enough day to not be anything fantastic, the sounds of the city familiar and grounding and the scent of ash clinging to her fingers as she wipes a hand under her nose. When she inhales cold-freezing-air, two rings almost catch in hair as they push along skin and...she's pretty sure she's screwed. In, like, every possible way but the good ones.

(Sometimes she goes to smoke a cigarette and her eyes linger on it like she _shouldn't_ but she smokes it, anyways).

"I'm so gonna be late." Chloe shakes her head at the sun-like it's someone up there's fault-and the air's been a little warmer than it should be, in New York, lately. Maybe all that global warming shit is finally catching up to her, and she...squints. Just for a second, barely catching sight of something in the distance. Blue and faint. Brown and long.

There's a rustle of air above her, long hair catching in it, nearly untangling from its hasty prison of a ponytail and she barely catches sight of something else out of the corner of her eye. A flash of brown and white and blue eyes snap around, heart kicking up like the rattling hum of her truck's engine. Not like she knows why.

She never knows why.

Some days she'll find herself looking around a corner like there's something in her chest pulling her towards it. Sometimes she'll find herself _running_ and she doesn't know why, only to be greeted with the slamming of an apartment building door, or... _nothing_. No one there. Chloe doesn't know what the hell's wrong with her, but it's always been this faint feeling rumbling in her chest. There's something on the edge of her tongue, always a word she doesn't remember-never learned-pressing up against the edge of her teeth like she's trying to break out of _jail,_ fingers curling desperately around white bars as they rattle and rattle and no escape comes.

It's sort of fucking morbid and, no, Chloe still doesn't get it.

So her eyes search-and search-only to find...nothing. Nothing there. There's never anything there. Her hands shove into her pockets, the sea of people parting for only a breath-a moment-when she catches sight of it, again. Something. There _is_ something there.

She thought it was a deer. And a fucking _deer_? In the _city_? What the hell Price? Maybe she accidentally smoked the wrong joint, earlier-

(There's pages and pages of sketches and doodles and whispers on the corners of blank pages. Always a deer, a red string curving around its neck, and she's drawn them so much she remembers Rachel laughing about the bone of her shoulder, fingers curling up her sides in _deer teases_ )

-but it's just brown hair, shoulders bobbing as someone walks down the street. Not a deer. A fucking person, because it's New York, and Chloe's _crazy._ But out of the corner of her eye she spots something...swirling in the air, floating and dancing like a glossy, well-kept parachute, and the wind guides it to the blonde's shoulder. A blink.

A...picture?

Two girls. She can't see their faces, but there's something about the picture- _something_ ; maybe it's just _beautiful_ -and before Chloe knows what she's doing, hands barely curling in pockets, she's pushing through the crowd to follow after the woman who dropped it. She doesn't know why-doesn't even wonder, anymore-breath picking up a little when the woman turns a corner and before she knows what the _hell_ she's doing, she's trotting to catch up with her and pushing a few people out of her way to do it.

Okay. Maybe she's _running_ like a purse-snatcher trying to get away from the Fez and shoving people out of her way, but it's whatever.

"Hey!" She shouts, but it's New York and no one cares what the hell she's doing as long as she doesn't have a gun and, even then, they probably wouldn't do much. Just figure she's shooting an episode of Law and Order. "Hey!" She tries again and now she's _sprinting_ and breathless and...nearly collides into this random girl when she stops at the nearby crosswalk.

The girl stumbles, hands shooting up as she turns around, blue eyes widening a little to see someone so close to her as her hands catch on Chloe's shoulders, both of them hopping a few steps from the motion, and…

"Shit-" She almost seriously knocks them into a car, hand snatching up to catch a palm, fingers curling in her shoulder. A car honks and there's a noise of someone's heel catching against the ground in a crash of a thud and somehow they stop from toppling into a car zooming past the intersection.

This girl's nose is buried in her neck and the world stops and-

And Chloe feels warm. That's the only way to describe it. It's this muted kind of peace in her chest that spreads and she smiles like an idiot because her eyes are so deep that she thinks people write _poems_ about shit like this. "Woah." There's an itch in her chest, down to her bones, and she doesn't move her fingers as they stand at a halt. "Thanks. Sorry, I almost...tripped all over you."

"I...hi?" The girl, maybe just a little younger than her but eyes wide and lips barely parted, clears her throat, pulling away from her neck. And looks at her, for a moment, like she's a little dumbfounded, too, before she shakes her head, the hand not clasped in Chloe's easing its grip on her bicep, but not moving. "Do I…know you, or, uh-"

"Oh, oh right, you uh…" Chloe holds up the black and white photo that floated away and the girl's eyes widen a little, reaching up to gently take it back. "This sort of...flew away from you."

"Oh. Thank you." Their fingers brush, again, and the girl's cheeks barely tinge red as she reaches up and holds the picture close to her chest like it's something precious. "You...seriously chased me down to give me a picture?"

"It looked important." Chloe shifts. Shrugs. She's not exactly known for kind gestures and she doesn't know why either.

"It is." The girl agrees. "Very. And they say chivalry's dead. As if." A beat of a pause. "Nice ink." The younger girl untucks the camera from her shoulder, eyes skimming up Chloe's arm-it's a full sleeve, a doe and a butterly, a red string tying them together as they spin in swirls up and down the canvas of skin-and Chloe smiles. "Mind if I…" She points to the camera.

"Mind if you, what?" A beat. "Oh, you want to-Seriously?" Chloe pushes blonde strands from her eye, head barely ducking in what might be sheepishness but she still displays her arm. "Go for it." And the girl actually does. She fucking takes a picture of it after a stranger chased her down and nearly got them ran over.

Only in New York.

"Thanks. It's great. Did someone design that for you, or did you-"

"Yeah, the idea just popped into my head, one day, and I just-" More like it's been a dream every night. Every single night.

"Had to get it?" Max finishes, a soft, nearly reverent smile on her features, "Yeah, I totally get that." Her fingers scratch a little over her heart and Chloe wonders why. "I'm the same way with pictures. Well, taking them. I mean, it's just a hobby, but there's just this...feeling you get. Where you just know."

"Yeah." The conversation could be done. That should be that. Normal people would awkwardly nod and shuffle and shrug and go their separate ways. And Chloe doesn't wonder why she's so desperate to think of something to keep her here, stepping closer, gesturing towards the picture. "Did you take that?" A gesture towards the thing that caused her to run across the city like Mad Max in the wasteland.

"What? No, no, I just-" The stranger finally lowers her camera completely, gingerly tucking the picture protectively in her bag to double check, this time. She looks like she has a habit of checking to make sure things are there. "Well, I don't know. I've just always had it."

"Cool." Chloe's hand curves around the back of her neck and the girl clears her throat, nodding with another smile of _thanks_ and looks like she doesn't want to leave and Chloe's got no idea what it is-maybe it's that second joint or her hangover-but she doesn't want her to, either.

"Chloe." She steps forward and the girl turns around, a surprised look in deep eyes. She's nervous. She doesn't know why but she's nervous and a little overwhelmed and she just keeps _fucking talking like an idiot._ "My name's Chloe. Since, you know, you...totally asked, and all. I could tell you were just dying to know. Can't blame you, since I valiantly chased you down the streets with your-"

"Max." She cuts her off.

Max.

Something about it warms her chest like whiskey and when they both smile she's got no idea why her chest feels so tight. Chloe stretches her hand back out and Max, amazingly enough, takes it. They don't even bother shaking, searching each other's eyes.

The sun is bright and brushes like fingers through both of their hair as Max shifts, the tail end of a journal sticking out of her bag, but Chloe doesn't look away from her for a second. Funny, finding a girl she can't seem to pull away from in the middle of the city.

"You want to-" Chloe might even start to ask her to something lame like coffee or something but Max, surprising her for a second time, cuts her off.

"I'd love to."

"Cool." Her smile spreads, cold air illogically warming her cheeks. Apparently _cool_ is all she knows how to say, so she tries to say something funny, instead. "Never thought you'd agree to pay for dinner that quick." It's a lame joke. It's a miracle Max laughs, beautiful and bright.

This might be the moment she falls in love with her.

 _She fell in love with her twenty years ago, before they even met, the moment a balloon popped across the street. She fell in love with her a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, but it always starts with this-with Chloe irrevocably nearly colliding with Max and their hands clasping like they're lovers in war._

And they're still fucking holding hands.

"If you want to eat on an artist's budget. Pretty sure I spotted some trash cans around the back."

"Living the free-gan lifestyle? You must be famous." Her smile spreads. "I always wanted to get the real city experience, lead the way, Artist." Chloe tugs her backward until they're at a nearby bar on the street, right around the corner from her job. They serve coffee, she tells her-Nothing classier, Max says. And Max doesn't say a single other thing, following, Chloe listening to the jingling bells as she watches the unfamiliar woman walk through the door, gaze lingering. What is it about her? Is this that...thing that they talk about in movies? Is this that cheesy romcom sort of thing where she's about to start...writing poems and getting love-drunk and-

"You alright?" The girl asks from the door, turning around, blue eyes endless. Endless.

The girl.

Max.

She's so beyond late for work.

It _must_ be that cheesy sort of thing, because there's one thing running around in her mind over and over again- _Finally_. She thinks, no reason or rhyme or explanation.

 _Finally_ , she thinks, hand curling around a steaming mug, scent of it warm in the back of her throat, listening to Max laugh and nervously shuffle the photographs in her bag as Chloe learns about this girl who lost her mother when she was twenty-two and takes pictures of butterflies even though she doesn't know why.

 _Finally,_ she thinks _._

Max.

 _I found you._

 **Chloe never drops her hand and Max never asks her to.**

"Chloe?" The sun settles through a small apartment with a heater that never works, an old ratty blanket tucked around small hips and scattered pages along the floor, lips of a parting smile brushing underneath the edge of her jaw. Over the curve of her shoulder. And Chloe leans into her. Fingers raise to gently push the hair out of her eyes and there's something serious on her face-in deep eyes-something old and quiet and understanding. There's something different about the way a smooth jaw sets. Sets like inevitability.

"Hmm?" Light dances along the edge of a nose, highlighting freckles with fluttering peach hues of butterfly wings and shimmering ocean of doe eyes. Chloe leans into Max's hand and watches light glint off of two rings but she doesn't notice the way the sun catches on them, anymore. Only notices Max, who looks so serious and thoughtful and…

Content, she thinks, like she's finally understood what a look like that means. Like something's finally registered, in the back of her mind.

"Do you ever get the feeling you've done all of this, before?"

Their eyes meet. The pencil slackens in her fingers. Max's nose brushes along the edge of her cheek.

Her breath catches in her chest and she doesn't know why...but she smiles, despite this overwhelming clench around the beating thing against her ribs.

"I'd do it a thousand times over if it meant I was right here."

"And you say _I_ say cheesy things." But Max's gaze softens and she kisses her and kisses her and kisses her and Chloe barely hears her, a whisper in her ear that feels like that same, content smile.

That feels like a love of fate.

" _I would, too."_

The first memory Chloe Price has of meeting Maxine Caulfield is of running. She doesn't remember the day very well, all of it pieces and fragments and torn remnants of a picture she was never able to put back together. Sometimes when she thinks about it, she remembers seeing a mess of brown hair above a crowd of people. She remembers a laugh, sometimes, warming her chest and catching her attention. Sometimes she remembers the sound of a horn in the background, because who had fucking patience in New York city, anyways? Sometimes she remembers the screeching of tires, or the way Max's jacket compressed when she curled fingers into it, nearly colliding into it, two seconds away from making a Max-Angel in the middle of a pile of snow in the city.

Sometimes, if she thinks hard enough, she can remember the way blue eyes looked so far away across a sea of white, angels falling from the sky in a blanket of ice and _new_ , eyes frozen shut from tears, something pressed in her palm. She remembers the way Max turned around across the sea of people and looked so sad, hand barely raising among the unknowing citizens of a city that always mattered and offering the quietest of waves, a torn picture in her hand, but it's a faint memory. A bare one.

Chloe remembers many things about the first day she met Maxine Caulfield, and she remembers none of them, but she always-always-

She always, no matter when or where, remembers running.

" _The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?"_

-Milan Kundera, _The Unbearable Lightness of Being._


End file.
